The European Union will invest €10 billion to build up to seven artificial intelligence (AI) super factories across member states, expanding from an initial plan of five due to strong interest from countries within the bloc [1, 2]. Each facility will house at least 100,000 advanced AI chips, offering computing power about four times greater than the EU’s current data centers, which number 19 in total [3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 2].
These factories will integrate AI processors, software, cloud computing, high-speed connectivity, and data centers to support training, inference, and fine-tuning of next-generation AI models [1, 10, 8, 2]. The €10 billion public funding aims to leverage a minimum of €20 billion in private investments, potentially bringing total investment to €30 billion (approximately US$34 billion) [1, 3, 4, 10, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 2].
Major AI chipmakers including AMD, Nvidia, and Qualcomm have signed letters of intent with the European Commission to supply the projects with chips, underscoring the industry’s strong involvement [1, 5, 6, 7, 9, 2]. EU Commission Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen said, "Access to the raw scale of computing power within AI Gigafactories is a strategic necessity for Europe as AI development accelerates" [1].
The EU sees these super factories as critical to advancing AI development and achieving technological sovereignty amid stiff competition from the US and China [1, 5, 6, 7, 9, 2]. However, challenges include electricity costs that are two to three times higher than in those countries and ongoing reliance on US suppliers for AI components and cloud services [5, 6, 7, 9, 2]. There is also concern that overdependence on foreign suppliers could threaten data sovereignty and service continuity.
The tender process for contracting these projects opened on July 30, 2026, and will close on November 12, 2026, with winning bidders expected to be announced in early 2027 [1, 3, 2]. Successful projects are planned to become operational within 18 months after contract signing, likely in 2028 or 2029 [1, 3, 2].
