European Commission launches initiative to establish AI Gigafactories
The EC has launched a call for tenders to establish up to seven AI Gigafactories across Europe, marking a major step towards strengthening EU's technological sovereignty and advancing its ambition to become the world's leading AI continent.
The BDVA community welcomes the today’s European Commission call for tenders, meant to establish up to seven AI Gigafactories across Europe, marking a major step towards strengthening Europe’s technological sovereignty and advancing its ambition to become the world’s AI continent.
Supported by up to €10 billion in combined EU and national funding, the initiative is expected to attract at least €20 billion in private investment. The new AI Gigafactories will provide cutting-edge computing infrastructure for start-ups, scale-ups, SMEs, industry, researchers, universities and public authorities, enabling the development, training and deployment of next-generation artificial intelligence models.
The facilities will combine state-of-the-art AI processors, advanced software and cloud technology, high-speed connectivity and energy-efficient data centres. Together with Europe’s existing network of 19 AI Factories, they are expected to significantly expand the EU’s AI computing capacity while reinforcing Europe’s resilience, competitiveness and strategic autonomy in artificial intelligence.
The call is open to industry-led consortia bringing together companies, public bodies, investors and other partners. Projects may be located within a single Member State or developed as cross-border infrastructures spanning several countries. All proposals will be evaluated through a competitive process managed by the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU).
The procurement programme will be delivered in two phases, supporting up to seven Gigafactories. The first funding stream will finance up to four projects with EU contributions of up to €500 million each across both phases, while a second stream will support up to three larger facilities eligible for up to €1 billion each. Public investment is intended to stimulate substantial private funding required to build and operate these next-generation AI computing centres.
Alongside the infrastructure programme, the Commission has introduced measures to strengthen Europe’s AI hardware ecosystem. Gigafactory consortia will be able to source advanced processors from suppliers in Europe and like-minded countries, with part of the procurement potentially reserved for European start-ups and scale-ups. In parallel, the Commission has signed letters of intent with AMD, NVIDIA and Qualcomm to help secure access to the advanced AI chips needed for the initiative.
The call for tenders closes on 12 November 2026. Following evaluation by the EuroHPC JU, the successful projects are expected to be announced in early 2027, with construction beginning later that year. The first AI Gigafactories are expected to become operational within 18 months of contract signature.
BDVA, through its many Task Forces, such as Task Force Data Spaces, Task Force GenAI, Task Force HPC, Task Force Energy, or etami, are prepared to support in making Europe a global leader in data and AI.
etami, the BDVA Task Force for Trustworthy AI creates processes and tools to enable ethical, trustworthy and legal AI. etami translates European and global principles for ethical AI into actionable and measurable guidelines, tools and methods.
TF Data Spaces aims at achieving secure data sharing, to reach the goals of European data spaces. It currently focuses on AI and Data Spaces, leveraging the vast amount of high-quality data from data spaces to produce and train large AI models, strengthening the connection between AI and data spaces while positioning AI as their key enabler. It proposed AI-ready Data Products, advancing the data product paradigm to better serve AI practitioners and applications, including methods for optimising data preparation for AI.
TF Energy gathers diverse stakeholders involved in the energy value chain. Highly efficient usage of this value chain generates a huge amount of data, which must be mobilised and exploited to respond to the socio-economic stakes of the energy transition and environmental challenges.
TF Gen AI / Foundation Models is currently identifing and analysing real-world applications of GenAI across industries, assessing impact, scalability and business potential, developing strategies to facilitate industrial stakeholders on leveraging GenAI.
TF HPC focuses on leading several research and innovation activities relevant to both EuroHPC JU and the AI, Data and Robotics Partnership, supporting the alignment between both partnership communities with the goal of developing common business and research opportunities.
BDVA, in its capacity, as a European non-profit association with over 250 members from industry (including SMEs, startups, and large companies), research, academia, and the public sector, stands ready to support the European Commission, the Joint Undertaking, Member States, and other partners in implementing AI Gigafactories and making Europe a global leader in digital technologies. The goals of the European Commission are also central to BDVA’s mission and objectives: to create value for society and industry through data and AI innovation.