Brussels – The European Commission launched a call for tenders to create up to seven major artificial intelligence hubs across the European Union, in the name of innovation and competitiveness. Supported by up to 10 billion euros in EU and national funding, the initiative is expected to unlock at least 20 billion euros in private investment across the Union, bringing the total to 30 billion euros for new technologies.
The EU initiative aims to accelerate European technological sovereignty and realise the ambition of becoming the continent of artificial intelligence by expanding Europe’s computing capacity for artificial intelligence and providing start-ups, scale-ups, small and medium-sized enterprises, industry, universities, and public authorities with access to training infrastructure.
Applications may be submitted by consortia or special purpose vehicles comprising companies, public bodies, investors, and other partners. Artificial intelligence Gigafactories may be established in a single Member State, at a single site, or across multiple locations. They may also include cross-border developments spanning several Member States through distributed AI computing infrastructure. Proposals will undergo a competitive evaluation to select the winning projects. The deadline for submitting applications is 12 November 2026.
Artificial intelligence gigafactory consortia may procure hardware during any of the two development phases of the AI Gigafactory from any hardware providers in Europe or like-minded countries. Part of this procurement may be dedicated to start-ups (companies that have been in business for less than three years) and scale-ups (companies that have moved beyond the initial risk phase of a start-up). At the same time, and following the trade agreement between the European Union and the United States, the Commission has signed three letters of intent with the leading US hardware suppliers – AMD, NVIDIA and Qualcomm – to ensure that consortia have easy access to the necessary hardware.
“The opening of the AI Gigafactories call represents a milestone in our AI Continent ambitions,” said Henna Virkkunen, Executive Vice-President for Technological Sovereignty, Security and Democracy. “Access to the raw scale of computing power within AI Gigafactories is a strategic necessity for Europe as AI development accelerates,” she added. For this reason, she admits, “I am pleased to see Member States, industry and the Commission coming together to work on these facilities that are key to our technological sovereignty.”
English version by the Translation Service of Withub
