EU launches tender for up to 7 AI gigafactories with €30B goal, but lags US in AI race

The European Commission has initiated a tender for the construction of up to seven AI gigafactories in Europe, with the goal of significantly expanding the region's computing capacity for artificial intelligence. The project aims to leverage up to 10 billion euros from EU and national funds to attract at least 20 billion euros in private investments. These gigafactories are intended to provide startups, companies, research institutions, and public authorities with access to infrastructure for training and operating large AI models. Eighteen member states, including Germany and France, are participating in the initiative. The Commission has also signed letters of intent with AMD, NVIDIA, and Qualcomm to secure access to hardware. The application deadline is November 12, 2026, with the first factories expected to begin construction in 2027. This initiative is part of the EU's 'AI Continent' strategy. For comparison, major US tech companies alone plan to spend more than 600 billion dollars on data centers this year, making the European package of roughly 30 billion euros about 20 times smaller, which analysts say is only a drop in the bucket if all that computing power is indeed needed.