The European Commission opened a call for tenders on Thursday to build up to seven AI "gigafactories" across the European Union [1].
This initiative represents a strategic push to establish a sovereign AI infrastructure. By developing large-scale training facilities, the EU aims to close the technology gap and break the current market monopoly held by the U.S. and China [3].
These facilities are designed as super-computing hubs specifically for training next-generation AI technologies [2]. The Commission said that the goal is to achieve "tech sovereignty" by reducing the bloc's dependence on foreign software and hardware [1].
The project involves a mix of public and private investment. Reports on the total funding for the program vary, with some estimates placing the amount at €10 billion [5] and others citing a total of €30 billion [4].
The EU intends for these sites to be operational by mid-2028 [2]. The tender process will identify potential sites within member states to host the infrastructure necessary for high-level AI development [1].
By investing in these hubs, the EU hopes to provide domestic developers and researchers with the computational power required to compete globally. This effort focuses on creating a self-reliant ecosystem that does not rely on external providers for the most critical stages of AI model training [3].
“The EU aims to reduce reliance on US and Chinese AI technology”
The move signals a shift from the EU's traditional role as a primary regulator of AI toward becoming a primary producer. By investing in the physical layer of AI—compute and hardware—the bloc is attempting to mitigate the strategic risk of being locked out of critical technology if geopolitical tensions disrupt access to foreign super-computing clusters.
