On Tuesday 10 December, the European Commission announced that it had selected the first seven sites to host its first “AI Factories”, an initiative designed to boost Europe’s capacity to develop and train AI models.
These factories, hosted at research and technology centres in seven European countries (Spain, Italy, Finland, Luxembourg, Sweden, Germany and Greece), represent an investment of €1.5 billion, funded in equal parts by the EU and the participating countries.
These “AI Factories”, which aim to increase the computing power available for AI in Europe, will be interconnected and made available to European start-ups, industry and researchers.
They bring together several high-performance computing infrastructures known as European supercomputers (EuroHPC) to enable the development of advanced AI models in sectors considered strategic: health, industry, finance, agriculture, the environment and cybersecurity.
Between 2025 and 2026, five new supercomputers will be deployed, while two sites will operate or upgrade existing systems.
Setting up these first factories was one of the objectives of the first 100 days of Ursula von der Leyen’s new mandate. The Commissioner-designate for Digital and Tech Sovereignty, Henna Virkkunen, had spoken of her ambition to launch at least five of them at the start of her mandate (see EUROPE 13511/19).
Member States interested in the project can still submit their proposals until 1 February 2025. (Original version in French by Isalia Stieffatre)