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Investing.com -- Today, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced the launch of InvestAI, an initiative designed to mobilize €200 billion for investment in artificial intelligence (AI) at the AI Action (WA:ACT) Summit in Paris. This includes a new European fund of €20 billion designated for the development of AI gigafactories. The goal of this large-scale AI infrastructure is to foster open, collaborative development of the most advanced AI models and establish Europe as a primary hub for AI.
Von der Leyen stated that the initiative aims to improve healthcare, spur research and innovation, and increase competitiveness. The plan is to use a uniquely European approach based on openness, cooperation, and excellent talent. InvestAI is expected to supercharge this approach by mobilizing unprecedented capital for European AI gigafactories. This public-private partnership, compared to a CERN for AI, is designed to enable all scientists and companies, not just the largest ones, to develop the most advanced, very large models necessary to make Europe a leader in AI.
Nadia Calviño, President of the European Investment Bank, expressed that the EIB Group, in conjunction with the EU Commission, is enhancing support for AI, a key driver of innovation and productivity in Europe.
The InvestAI fund will finance the construction of four future AI gigafactories across the EU. These gigafactories will specialize in training the most complex, very large, AI models. This next-generation infrastructure is necessary for breakthroughs in specific domains like medicine or science. The factories will be equipped with around 100,000 state-of-the-art AI chips, approximately four times more than the current AI factories under development.
The gigafactories funded by InvestAI will form the largest public-private partnership in the world for the development of trustworthy AI. They will adhere to the European model of cooperative, open innovation, with a focus on complex industrial and mission-critical applications. The aim is to provide every company, not just the largest ones, with access to large-scale computing power to shape the future.
InvestAI will utilize a layered fund, with shares of differing risk and return profiles. The EU budget will help derisk the investment of other partners. The initial funding for InvestAI will originate from existing EU funding programs with a digital component, such as the Digital Europe Programme and Horizon Europe, and InvestEU. Member States can also contribute by programming funds from their Cohesion envelopes. Funding of AI gigafactories, through a mix of grants and equity, will serve as one of the pilot cases for strategic technologies announced in the Competitiveness Compass.
The Commission has previously announced seven AI factories in December and will soon disclose the next five. The existing support for AI Factories of €10 billion, co-financed by the EU and the Member States, is already the largest public investment in AI worldwide, and is projected to unlock more than ten times the amount of private investment. It already provides vast access for start-ups and industry to supercomputers.
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