Seven Consortia to Establish AI Factories and Boost EU Innovation

The European High-Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC) has selected seven proposals to establish and operate the first AI Factories across Europe. This is a major milestone for Europe in building a thriving ecosystem to train advanced AI models and develop AI solutions. The EU is now one step closer to realizing EC President Ursula von der Leyen's commitment to setting up the first AI Factories.

The first AI Factories will represent a €1.5 billion investment, combining national and EU funding. Half of this amount will be funded by the EU through the Digital Europe Program for AI infrastructure and Horizon Europe for AIF services. The selected AI Factories will be hosted at leading research and technology hubs across Europe. “BSC AIF” will be located at the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre, “IT4LIA” at CINECA - Bologna Tecnopolo, while Kajaani, Finland will be home for “LUMI AIF” at CSC. In Bissen, Luxembourg “Meluxina-AI” will be located at LuxProvide, “MIMER” at the University of Linköping, Sweden, “HammerHAI” at the University of Stuttgart, and “Pharos” at GRNET in Athens.

The seven AI Factories involve 15 Member States and two EuroHPC participating States. Portugal, Romania, and Türkiye have joined the BSC AIF; Austria and Slovenia have joined the ITA4LIA; and Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Norway, and Poland have joined the LUMI AIF. Five of the selected hosting sites will deploy brand-new world-class AI-optimized supercomputers, namely in Finland, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, and Sweden. The AI Factory in Spain will result from the upgrade of the existing EuroHPC system, MareNostrum 5. In Greece, an AI Factory will be established and operated, associated with the DAEDALUS supercomputer, a EuroHPC supercomputer currently under deployment in Greece.

The AI Factories in Spain and Finland will also feature an experimental platform, providing a cutting-edge infrastructure for developing and testing innovative AI models and applications and fostering collaboration across Europe. These AI Factories will more than double EuroHPC computing capacity, addressing specific needs and boosting European capabilities in AI. They will be deployed in 2025-2026.