On July 30 the European Commission launched the tender for building up to seven computing power centers. Public money is 10 billion euro, and the expectation is that private capital will add at least double that. There are no deadlines in the announcement itself.
- A tender call for building up to seven AI gigafactories in Europe.
- 10 billion euro from the EU and national budgets, with at least 20 billion private expected - over 30 billion total.
- Access is promised to startups, small and medium firms, industry, academia and public institutions.
The computers that run European AI mostly sit outside Europe. On July 30 the Commission admitted as much itself - with a tender for seven gigafactories.
What interests me is something else - not the billions, the door. We hear the promise that a small company will get access under every European infrastructure program. The difference only shows up in the conditions: what's the threshold to apply, how much paperwork does it want, is there a quota for the small players, or do they queue behind industry. The announcement doesn't say.
Good news if you're one of the ones who can wait. A gigafactory doesn't get built in one season. There are no deadlines yet. Until then, everyone building here runs their numbers through someone else's data centers and someone else's price list. We don't know the terms yet. The useful thing today is to watch for when they land - that's where we'll see whether the door is wide, or just for the record.