The European Commission has launched a call for tenders for the construction of up to seven artificial intelligence gigafactories. The projects are set to receive a total of €10 billion in public funding and attract at least €20 billion in private capital. The number of planned facilities has been increased from five due to significant interest from countries and companies. The deadline for submitting bids is 12 November 2026, and the first facilities could begin operations in 2028.
The gigafactories will combine data centres, cloud services, high-speed networks and over 100,000 advanced AI processors. They are expected to be around four times more powerful than the AI factories currently under development. They will complement a network of 19 European centres that provide computing power to businesses, researchers and public authorities.
For the EU, this is an attempt to close the gap with the United States and China. Europe currently accounts for around 5 per cent of global computing power dedicated to AI, whilst its market for cloud services and the most advanced chips remains dependent on foreign suppliers. Letters of intent regarding chip supplies have been signed by, amongst others, Nvidia, AMD and Qualcomm. This shows that expanding the infrastructure does not yet equate to full technological sovereignty.
The construction of gigafactories could make it easier for European start-ups to access costly resources, accelerate the development of solutions for industry, medicine and cybersecurity, and increase demand for specialists. At the same time, these investments will place a strain on the power grid and increase demand for water and energy. High electricity prices and the fact that part of the funding depends on the future EU budget also remain risks. The programme’s success will therefore depend not only on the scale of expenditure, but also on the availability of infrastructure for smaller firms.
