EU pledges $200 billion in AI spending in bid to catch up with US, China
Summary
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said at the AI Action Summit in Paris that the bloc wants to supercharge its ability to compete with the U.S. and China in AI.
The European Union pledged to mobilize 200 billion euros ($206.15 billion) to invest in artificial intelligence as the bloc seeks to catch up with the U.S. and China in the race to train the most complex models.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that the bloc wants to supercharge its ability to compete with the U.S. and China in AI. The plan—dubbed InvestAI—includes a new 20 billion-euro fund for so-called AI gigafactories, facilities that rely on powerful chips to train the most complex AI models.
“We want Europe to be one of the leading AI continents, and this means embracing a life where AI is everywhere," von der Leyen said at the AI Action Summit in Paris.
The announcement underscores efforts from the EU to position itself as a key player in the AI race. The bloc has been lagging behind the U.S. and China since OpenAI’s 2022 release of ChatGPT ushered in a spending bonanza.
The EU pledge comes a month after Washington announced Stargate, an AI joint venture that aims to build data centers in the U.S. for OpenAI. OpenAI, SoftBank Group, Oracle and MGX are the initial equity funders in Stargate, while Arm, Microsoft and Nvidia are technology partners. The companies are committing $100 billion initially and plan to invest up to $500 billion over the next four years.
Meanwhile, Beijing has also made strides in the technology. Chinese company DeepSeek developed AI models that it said nearly matched American rivals despite using inferior chips, raising questions about the need to spend huge sums on advanced gear provided by Nvidia and other tech giants.
“Too often I hear that the EU is late to the race," von der Leyen said, insisting it was “far from being over."
The commission’s initial funding for InvestAI will come from existing EU programs, though member states can also contribute. InvestAI will include a layered fund, with shares of different risk and return profiles.
The EU is aiming to establish gigafactories to train the most complex and large AI models. Those facilities will be equipped with roughly 100,000 last-generation AI chips, around four times more than the number installed in the AI factories being set up right now.
The bloc in December selected several consortia to establish seven AI factories, with plans to announce another five soon. Von der Leyen said the InvestAI fund would finance AI gigafactories through a mix of grants and equity.
News Corp, owner of Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal, has a content-licensing partnership with OpenAI.
Write to Edith Hancock at edith.hancock@wsj.com and Mauro Orru at mauro.orru@wsj.com
