# EU Opens Call for Up to Seven AI Gigafactories

**The European Union launched a tender for up to seven AI Gigafactories, backed by up to €10 billion in funding meant to unlock €30 billion overall.**

## What the EU announced

The European Union has launched a call for tenders to establish up to seven AI Gigafactories across Europe, according to [the EU's announcement](https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/news/eu-launches-ai-gigafactories-call-boost-europes-computing-capacity-and-unlock-more-eu30-billion). The announcement frames the move as part of the EU's wider push to accelerate Europe's technological sovereignty and its ambition to become what it calls the AI Continent.

## How the funding works

Industry will lead the projects, with up to €10 billion of EU and national funding supporting them. The EU expects that public backing to unlock at least €20 billion in private investment across the Union, contributing to the more than €30 billion in investment the initiative is designed to attract overall.

## What the Gigafactories include

The AI Gigafactories are meant to combine advanced AI processors, software and cloud technology stacks, high-speed connectivity, and energy-efficient data centres. The announcement says the facilities will give start-ups, scale-ups, small and medium-sized enterprises, industry, academia, and public authorities access to infrastructure for training, inference, and fine-tuning advanced frontier AI models. Together with Europe's existing network of 19 AI Factories, the EU says the Gigafactories will strengthen the continent's technological leadership, resilience, and strategic autonomy.

## Rules the projects must follow

The EU says the initiative will let Europe develop advanced AI on its own infrastructure, in line with EU rules and values. Any AI technology developed inside the Gigafactories will need to follow EU standards on data protection, safety, security, and ethics, according to the announcement. In practice, that means a project hosted in the AI Gigafactories cannot simply adopt whatever approach a customer prefers; it has to meet the same baseline the EU already applies across the Union.

## Where to learn more

On 16 June, the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking organised a dedicated online information session on the AI Gigafactories initiative ahead of this launch, and the presentations from that session are now available for anyone who wants more detail before the tender process moves forward. The announcement also points readers to its wider material on strengthening Europe's tech sovereignty and to its AI Continent Action Plan for more context on how this initiative fits into its broader digital strategy.

## Key facts

- Up to seven AI Gigafactories are being tendered for across Europe.
- Up to €10 billion in EU and national funding will back the projects.
- The EU expects the funding to unlock at least €20 billion in private investment.
- The initiative is designed to unlock more than €30 billion in investment overall.
- Europe already runs a network of 19 AI Factories that the Gigafactories will build on.

## Check your understanding

- How much EU and national funding is backing the AI Gigafactories initiative, and how much private investment does the EU expect it to unlock?
- How many AI Factories does Europe already operate, according to the announcement?

## Sources

- [EU launches AI Gigafactories call to boost Europe's computing capacity](https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/news/eu-launches-ai-gigafactories-call-boost-europes-computing-capacity-and-unlock-more-eu30-billion)

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- Category: know (policy)
- Affects: —
- Published: 2026-07-30T00:00:00.000Z
- Original: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/news/eu-launches-ai-gigafactories-call-boost-europes-computing-capacity-and-unlock-more-eu30-billion
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