The European Union is putting €10 billion behind seven AI gigafactories — four smaller facilities and three larger ones spread across the bloc. The money comes from two merged programs rather than one confirmed budget line, and bidding and construction have slipped into 2026 and beyond.
Brussels is backing seven AI gigafactories with €10 billion, a two-tier buildout of four smaller facilities and three larger ones across the bloc. Yet no concrete €10 billion commitment has been confirmed for those seven as a single unified budget line — the funding sits across multiple programs, budget cycles, and public-private structures, each carrying its own approval processes and political dynamics.
Two programs merged into one plan
The plan traces back to two overlapping tracks. The EuroHPC Joint Undertaking had already earmarked €10 billion for AI Factories, the term Brussels uses for high-performance computing centers optimized for AI workloads.
Seven of those smaller-scale AI Factories were selected in December 2024, each designed to deploy up to 25,000 H100-equivalent chips, and they are anticipated to come online by 2026. The second track, InvestAI, arrived at the AI Action Summit in February 2025 and aimed to mobilize €20 billion in public-private funding for up to five larger AI Gigafactories.
By mid-2026 the two tracks merged into the current seven-facility structure. Subsidies break down to roughly €100 million for the smaller hubs and €200 million for the larger ones, with the rest expected to come from private investment and member state contributions.
Uneven private interest and slipping timelines
Europe has exactly one frontier AI lab that gets mentioned in serious conversations: Mistral, the French startup that has raised billions but still operates at a fraction of the scale of OpenAI or Anthropic. Private sector interest in the gigafactory program has been uneven.
A French consortium called AION reportedly submitted a bid valued at approximately $10 billion, which would have been a significant anchor for the program. But enthusiasm has reportedly waned amid delays in the bidding and construction timelines, which have now been pushed back into 2026 and beyond.
Meanwhile, the EU's next major budget cycle kicks in around 2028, which will likely determine whether the gigafactory program gets the sustained funding it needs. Two signals matter before then: whether private co-investment materializes at the scale Brussels is hoping for, and whether any facility secures anchor tenants with genuine frontier AI ambitions.
Source: Crypto Briefing
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