BRUSSELS — The EU on Thursday fired the starting gun on plans to fund seven multibillion-euro computing hubs to train artificial intelligence models in Europe.
The launch of an official process for seven industry consortia willing to build AI “gigafactories” fulfills a promise made by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at an AI summit last year to help Europe catch up in the race on AI.
AI companies need massive amounts of compute power to train advanced models, which is fueling the effort to build out specialized data centers. The EU’s goal is to support four smaller data centers, each underpinned by 25,000 to 75,000 specialized AI chips, and three larger ones, each powered by 40,000 to 100,000 chips.
The Commission will select the winning bids by early next year, after which companies will have 18 months to build them. Those angling for a smaller project could receive up to €1 billion in public funding, while the larger projects could receive up to €2 billion.
