An initiative launched by the
President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, at
the AI ;;Action Summit in Paris to mobilize 200 billion euros of
investments in the artificial intelligence sector is called
InvestAI.
The initiative includes a new European fund of €20 billion to
create AI gigafactories, an infrastructure needed to enable the
open and collaborative development of the most complex AI models
and to make Europe an AI continent, as the Commission intends.
"This unique public-private partnership, similar to a CERN for
AI, will enable all our scientists and companies, not only the
largest, to develop the most advanced very large-scale models
needed to make Europe an AI continent," said von der Leyen, who
highlighted the "unprecedented" mobilization of capital for the
creation of European AI gigafactories.
The InvestAI fund, the Commission explains in a note, will
finance four future AI gigafactories across the EU specialized
in training the most complex and large-scale AI models.
These next-generation models require large computing
infrastructure to achieve breakthroughs in specific areas such
as medicine or science.
The gigafactories will have around 100,000 next-generation AI
chips, four times more than the AI ;;factories currently being
built.
The gigafactories funded by InvestAI will be the world's largest
public-private partnership for the development of trustworthy
AI, the Berlaymont Palace highlights, and will serve the
European model of open and cooperative innovation, with a focus
on complex and mission-critical industrial applications.
The aim is for every company, not just the largest, to have
access to large-scale computing power to build the future.
InvestAI will comprise a tiered fund, with shares with different
risk and return profiles.
The Commission's initial funding for InvestAI will come from
existing EU funding programmes with a digital component, such as
Digital Europe and Horizon Europe, and from InvestEU. Member
States can also contribute by programming funds from their
cohesion envelopes.
Financing AI gigafactories with a mix of grants and equity will
be one of the pilot cases for strategic technologies announced
in the Competitiveness Compass.
This follows the AI ;;Factories initiative, seven of which were
already announced in December, with five to be announced soon.
The current support for AI Factories, amounting to €10 billion
and co-financed by the EU and Member States, is already the
largest public investment in AI in the world and will unlock
more than ten times the private investment.
The support already provides start-ups and industry with massive
access to supercomputers.
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