The European Commission recently allocated €1.5 billion to establish seven new or upgraded AI factories across Europe. Each factory will specialize in specific areas of the EU economy.
The facilities aim to promote the use of AI by small businesses and boost research within the EU academic community. Each facility will house advanced supercomputers, powerful general-purpose AI models and specialized programming tools.
Key features of the AI factories
With factories, organizations will have the opportunity to develop, test and evaluate new algorithms. The Commission expects this will push the boundaries of AI applications in the EU. The first factories should be up and running by 2025. “This way, Europe will be an ‘AI continent’ by the end of the decade,” said Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
The concept and components of an AI factory
The concept of AI factories stems from the vision of NVIDIA founder Jensen Huang. He argues that such facilities act as an engine for generating revenue and intelligence in this era of technological advancement. He emphasizes their crucial role in supporting the development and deployment of chatbots, generative AI models such as ChatGPT and other advanced applications.
EU’s chosen locations for AI factories
A robust AI factory typically consists of four key components. First, a data pipeline that prepares data for AI processing. Next, algorithm development capabilities and powerful software infrastructure, such as supercomputers, to enable AI training. Finally, an experimentation platform for testing and evaluating AI models is necessary.
The intelligence generated from these factories can then power different AI models or other advanced technologies. For example, NVIDIA plans to use its factory to accelerate the development of industrial robots, self-driving vehicles and generative AI systems.
Site-specific focus areas
The locations chosen by the EU for these AI plants are diverse: Barcelona (Spain), Bissen (Luxembourg), Bologna (Italy), Stuttgart (Germany), Mimer (Sweden), Kajaania (Finland) and Athens (Greece). Existing supercomputer facilities in Spain will be upgraded. Greece will launch a factory with the supercomputer DAEDALUS.
Each factory will specialize in specific areas of the EU economy, such as agri-food and cybersecurity in Italy and aerospace and finance in Luxembourg. Some factories, such as those in Finland and Greece, will also offer in-service training programs for people who want to retrain for AI-related jobs.