Europe Receives Overwhelming Response to AI Gigafactory Initiative

A total of 76 expressions of interest proposing to set up AI Gigafactories in 16 Member States across 60 different sites have been submitted in response to the Call for Expression of Interest in AI Gigafactories, which closed on 20 June. The high number of proposals received went well beyond the Commission's expectations. This is a clear testament to the very high momentum and interest in AI across Europe, and especially in AI Gigafactories. This wave of interest underscores Europe’s opportunity to position itself as a global powerhouse in artificial intelligence, fully aligned with the bold vision set out in the AI Continent Action Plan.

The purpose of this call for expression of interest was to gather early insights from respondents comprising European industry leaders, private and public investors (from Europe and beyond), and the Member States, interested in shaping the future of AI infrastructure in Europe. While these submissions are not formal applications, they will play a crucial role in helping the European Commission and Member States identify and map out a dynamic, non-binding roster of potential candidates ready to establish world-class AI Gigafactory facilities across the EU, ahead of the official call for proposals planned for the end of 2025.

The respondents include major European companies representing data centre operators, telecoms, power suppliers, as well as both European and global technology partners and financial investors. In their expressions of interest, the respondents foresee the acquisition of at least three million latest generation specialised processors (GPUs) in total. The European Commission will not disclose further information about the identity of the Respondents given the confidential business information provided in their expressions of interest. At the same time, individual Respondents may decide to disclose their submission at their own initiative.

The AI Gigafactories concept builds on the AI Factories initiative, harnessing Europe’s cutting-edge EuroHPC supercomputing network to realise the EU’s ambition of becoming the world’s leading AI continent. AI Gigafactories will be state-of-the-art, large-scale AI compute and data storage hubs, purpose-built to develop, train, and deploy next-generation AI models and applications at hyperscale, e.g., models with hundreds of trillions of parameters. By integrating vast computing power, energy-efficient data centres, and AI-driven automation, these facilities will set new benchmarks for AI model training, inference, and deployment.

Establishing Europe’s first AI Gigafactories will require significant investment and coordinated policy action, delivering tangible benefits for EU competitiveness. As such, these Gigafactories will serve as flagship pilot projects for the Competitiveness Coordination Tool, as outlined in the Competitiveness Compass. The successful call for expression of interest run by the European Commission and the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking, as well as its follow-up to select consortia for the future implementation of AI gigafactories in the European Union, should be regarded as the first test case of the coordination mechanism of industrial and research policies between the EU and the national level foreseen as part of the Competitiveness Coordination Tool.

The European Commission will soon enter into discussions with all the respondents to prepare the next steps of the AI Gigafactory initiative. The Commission is then planning to launch an official call for the establishment of AI Gigafactories in the EU in the fourth quarter of 2025, via the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking.