THE European Union on Thursday sought tens of billions of euros in private investment to build AI “gigafactories”, as Brussels scrambles to build infrastructure to keep the bloc in the global AI race.
The EU is heavily dependent on foreign countries for technology and it fears that makes it vulnerable to the whims of non-European governments, like the United States.
The European Commission launched a call for tenders to establish up to seven AI gigafactories across Europe worth more than 30 billion euros ($34 billion).
Up 10 billion euros will come from EU and national funding, and over 20 billion euros from private investment.
Brussels says the gigafactories would be made up of advanced AI processors, software and cloud technology stacks, high-speed connectivity and energy-efficient data centres.
They would “expand Europe’s AI computing capacity and give startups, scale-ups, small and medium-sized enterprises, industry, academia and public authorities access to infrastructure”, the commission said.
The EU wants to triple data centre capacity in Europe in the next five to seven years by making it easier to build them, although it faces difficulties over energy costs which are higher than in the United States and China.
“The opening of the AI gigafactories call represents a milestone in our AI continent ambitions,” EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen said in a statement.
“Access to the raw scale of computing power within AI Gigafactories is a strategic necessity for Europe as AI development accelerates”. — AFP
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