On Tuesday 21 January, US President Donald Trump announced the launch of a massive artificial intelligence (AI) initiative called Stargate.
This $500 billion project will “build the physical and virtual infrastructure to support the next generation of AI” and will create “more than 100,000 jobs” in the United States, according to Mr Trump.
Several new technology giants will be at the helm of this project: Cloud specialist Oracle, Japanese investment giant SoftBank and generative AI start-up OpenAI. Nvidia, the world leader in semiconductors, has also joined forces.
The companies who are involved intend to build giant data centres, which will be incubators for the next generation of artificial intelligence.
Under Joe Biden, the United States had also restricted the export and marketing of microprocessors that are needed to design AI models. Only ten of the EU’s twenty-seven Member States are exempt from these restrictions: France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Spain and Italy.
When asked about this declaration – which in terms of investment represents almost 200 times the initiative on AI factories undertaken by the EU (see EUROPE 13542/13) – the European Commission on Wednesday 22 January simply noted the “extensive cooperation” that already exists in this area with the United States and its desire to pursue initiatives in the sector, including the deployment of the future European strategy applied to AI. (Original version in French by Isalia Stieffatre)