EU Launches Multi-Billion-Euro Tender for AI Gigafactories – Fast Power Supply Becomes a Competitive Factor

Brussels – The European Commission has launched a tender for the construction of up to seven AI Gigafactories, aiming to trigger more than EUR 30 billion in investment in Europe's AI infrastructure. For operators of large AI data centers, speed has become a decisive competitive factor. Companies able to secure the required power supply quickly gain a critical advantage in the global AI race.

With the Gigafactories, the EU aims to strengthen its technological sovereignty and build up its own AI capacity. At the same time, a new challenge is coming into focus that has already emerged in the United States: while the semiconductor industry is massively expanding global production capacity for high-performance AI chips, the rapid provision of large amounts of electricity is increasingly becoming the decisive location factor for operating modern AI data centers.

Multi-Billion-Euro Program for Europe's AI Infrastructure

Up to EUR 10 billion in EU and national funding is intended to mobilize at least EUR 20 billion in private investment. The tender is open to industrial consortia or dedicated project companies (special purpose vehicles). Sites can be developed either within a single member state or across borders.

The AI Gigafactories are intended to provide start-ups, industry, research institutions and public bodies with high-performance computing capacity for training, developing and operating state-of-the-art AI models. Depending on the funding category, projects must reach at least the computing capacity of the currently most powerful European AI Factory, increasing it three- to four-fold in a second expansion phase.

The tender was preceded by a call for expressions of interest, which drew 76 project proposals for 60 sites in 16 member states with a combined investment volume of more than EUR 230 billion. The application deadline is November 12, 2026. Project selection is expected in early 2027, with construction to begin the same year. The first AI Gigafactories are scheduled to start operations no later than 18 months after contract signing.

AI Boom Reshapes Power Supply Requirements

As large AI data centers expand, energy supply is increasingly moving to the center of site-selection decisions. In international competition, the decisive factor is not installed power plant capacity alone, but a power system's ability to deliver large additional volumes of electricity within a short time frame. Alongside power generation, grid infrastructure, grid connections, storage and decentralized supply solutions are therefore becoming key competitive factors.

Experience from the United States shows that the time factor significantly influences the choice of energy supply. While new nuclear power plants can deliver large volumes of low-carbon electricity over the long term, their planning and construction timelines often run to ten to fifteen years. Small modular reactors (SMRs) are also not yet available at commercial scale. As a result, modern gas-fired power plants are frequently used in the short term, though their expansion is in turn constrained by limited production capacity – particularly for gas turbines and turbine blades.

At the same time, decentralized supply solutions are gaining importance. Bloom Energy, together with Oracle, built the power supply for an AI data center within a few months using stationary fuel cell systems. Such "behind-the-meter" solutions allow large data centers to be supplied with electricity directly on site, independent of lengthy grid-connection processes. With the AI Gigafactories now put out to tender, Europe faces the same challenge: data center construction is likely to proceed fastest where energy infrastructure can keep pace with the sharply rising demand for capacity.

AI Competition Becomes a Competition Between Power Supply Systems

The expansion of the AI Gigafactories illustrates a structural shift in the international AI competition. While the semiconductor industry is investing billions worldwide in additional production capacity for high-performance AI processors, gradually easing chip supply constraints, energy infrastructure is emerging as the new limiting factor for the expansion of large AI data centers. Powerful processors alone do not create AI data centers – they require a secured power supply within the shortest possible time.

Increasingly, the decisive question is which countries and regions can supply new AI data centers with electricity the fastest. Competition in artificial intelligence is thus becoming, at the same time, a competition between high-performance power supply systems. For the energy industry, the AI boom is developing into a new growth market. What will be in demand going forward is not individual power generation technologies, but high-performance power systems that quickly and reliably connect generation, grids, storage and decentralized supply solutions.

Source: IWR Online, 31 Jul 2026