According to an official statement, the European Commission has launched a call for setting up AI Factories to boost European leadership in trustworthy artificial intelligence (AI). AI Factories will be created around the EU’s world-class network of European High-Performance Computing (HPC) supercomputers and will be available to a range of European users, such as startups, industry, and researchers. 

President of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said: “Europe is already leading the way with the EU AI Act, ensuring AI is safer and more trustworthy. Earlier this year, we fulfilled our promise by opening our high-performance computers to European AI startups. Now, Europe must also become a global leader in AI innovation. AI Factories will help secure our position at the forefront of this transformative technology.” 

AI Factories will bring together the critical ingredients for success in AI: computing power, data and talent. They will help AI developers train their large generative AI models by using the EuroHPC supercomputers and providing access to data, computing and storage services. The Factories will be networked across Europe, providing a unique European collaborative AI framework. 

The AI Factories will be connected to Member States’ AI initiatives, creating a vibrant AI ecosystem. The Factories will also profit from Europe’s Testing and Experimentation Facilities and the Digital Innovation Hubs. The AI Factories will propel the development and validation of AI industrial and scientific applications in key European sectors such as healthcare, energy, automotive and transport, defence and aerospace, robotics and manufacturing, clean and agri tech. 

The rolling call launched by the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking on 11 September 2024 will be continuously open until 31 December 2025. The first deadline is 4 November 2024, and subsequent cut-off dates are every three months for as long as funds are available. This call will be supported by an EU contribution of close to €1 billion from the Digital Europe Programme and Horizon Europe and an equal amount of funding from the Member States. 

Background 

AI Factories are a highlight of the Commission’s AI innovation package presented in January 2024, together with: 

• Financial support is provided through Horizon Europe and the Digital Europe programme, which is dedicated to generative AI. This will generate an additional overall public and private investment of around €4 billion until 2027; 
• Accompanying initiatives to strengthen the EU’s generative AI talent pool through education, training, skilling and reskilling activities; 
• Further encouragement of public and private investments in AI startups and scale-ups, including through venture capital or equity support (including via new initiatives of the EIC Accelerator Programme and InvestEU); 
• The acceleration of the development and deployment of Common European Data Spaces was made available to the AI community, for whom data is a key resource for training and improving their models. A new Staff Working Document on common European data spaces has also been published on the same day, providing the latest state of play; 
• The ‘GenAI4EU’ initiative aims to support the development of novel use cases and emerging applications in Europe’s 14 industrial ecosystems and the public sector. Application areas include robotics, health, biotech, manufacturing, mobility, climate and virtual worlds; 
• Large AI Grand Challenge: winners announced in June 2024 are four innovative AI startups from Europe who will share the prize of €1 million and 8 million computational hours, advancing Europe’s leadership in AI development. 

The Commission will also set up a European AI Research Council, where Europe can pool resources and explore how to exploit the untapped potential of data to support AI and other technologies. 

Source: European Commission

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