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The European Investment Bank (EIB) Group has confirmed it will support the European Commission’s project to create large artificial intelligence “gigafactories” across the European Union.
The agreement was signed in Brussels on Thursday by Commission Executive Vice-President for Technology Henna Virkkunen, EIB President Nadia Calviño and European Investment Fund Deputy CEO Merete Clausen.
The goal is to speed up the development of the massive computing centres needed to train advanced AI models.
“The EU is determined to become a global leader in artificial intelligence” Virkkunen said. “These gigafactories will form the backbone of Europe’s future AI infrastructure. Together with the EIB Group, we are turning strong industrial interest into concrete projects that will secure Europe’s long-term competitiveness.”
Building the future
The partnership builds on the EU’s InvestAI initiative, announced earlier this year by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. The plan aims to mobilise €200 billion in AI investment across Europe, €20 billion of which will be dedicated to the construction of four to five AI gigafactories through a public-private partnership model.
The plan would allow small companies and start-ups to access large-scale computing power to develop future AI technologies and so boost EU capacities.
Around 70% of the funding is expected to come from private investors, with the remaining 30% from public sources.
Each gigafactory is expected to host around 100,000 AI chips, making them about four times larger than the AI factories currently being set up in the EU.
Virkkunen said that for now, those chips will mostly be purchased from outside the bloc, mainly from the United States, as Europe does not yet produce them at scale.
The EU is racing to catch up with global competitors on AI investment, an area in which other regions in the world are increasingly outperforming Europe.
Earlier this year, US President Donald Trump announced a joint venture with tech firms Stargate, OpenAI, Oracle and Softbank to invest billions of dollars in AI infrastructure.
The joint venture team will set up a separate company, deploying $100bn (€96bn) immediately and increasing the investment up to $500bn (€480bn) over the coming four years.