Dhaka: The European Union is offering 10 billion euros ($11.4 billion) in public funding to help build seven large-scale artificial intelligence facilities as the 27-nation bloc seeks to narrow its technology gap with the United States and China. The European Commission said on Thursday that the funding could attract another 20 billion euros ($22.8 billion) in private investment.
According to United News of Bangladesh, the European Commission emphasized the strategic necessity of accessing vast computing power within AI gigafactories to accelerate AI development. Henna Virkkunen, the Commission’s executive vice president in charge of tech sovereignty, highlighted the importance of these facilities. The EU has been intensifying efforts to establish “tech sovereignty” due to growing concerns about over-reliance on foreign technology providers, which European leaders fear could leave the bloc vulnerable to leverage in situations involving technology or critical supplies.
US President Donald Trump has criticized the EU’s technology regulations, while China has limited supplies of minerals crucial to the technology industry. Companies are now invited to bid on constructing the seven planned AI gigafactories, each expected to contain at least 100,000 advanced AI chips. These facilities are anticipated to be about four times more powerful than existing data centers in the EU. Once operational, they will more than double the EU’s current AI computing capacity, which includes 19 AI data centers spread across Finland to Spain.
Despite these advancements, Europe remains behind the US and China in several critical areas essential for AI development, as noted in a 2025 assessment by the US Federal Reserve. China benefits from a vast electricity capacity for data centers, while US companies garner most of the world’s private AI investments. Europe faces higher costs and supply challenges, including producing the millions of components needed for data centers and electricity prices two to three times higher than in the US and China, according to a European Commission report presented to the European Parliament in June.
The report cautioned that European companies and public authorities might continue depending on US AI and cloud providers, disadvantaging local service providers. It also warned of the potential risks to European data security and the continuity of essential services due to reliance on large foreign cloud and AI companies for critical services.
French AI company Mistral, which operates one of the EU’s largest AI data centers at its Paris campus and develops the Le Chat chatbot, still trails leading US firms like OpenAI and Chinese competitors such as DeepSeek. European leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron, have consistently warned of the need for stronger homegrown AI companies while addressing concerns about AI’s potential impact on jobs, the economy, and privacy.
The European Commission stated that AI products developed through the expanding network of data centers must adhere to EU standards regarding data protection, safety, security, and ethics. This initiative comes amid broader concerns about AI infrastructure’s environmental impact. In June, 40 mayors from global cities signed an agreement to limit AI data centers’ impact on natural resources, energy prices, and climate targets.