A French consortium named AION is seeking European funding for a large-scale AI data center project in France costing around €10 billion. The consortium includes Capgemini, Orange, Scaleway, Ardian, and EDF. The group plans to apply for support from the European Commission’s new €20 billion European AI infrastructure fund. Ardian’s infrastructure investments head says the French project could represent about half of the fund’s total. Financing is expected to combine private investment, bank loans, and European subsidies. The project supports Europe’s digital sovereignty goals by reducing reliance on American and Chinese AI infrastructure. The plan targets a one-gigawatt data center environment, with an initial phase around 100 megawatts, to meet rising AI training and inference power needs.
"A French consortium of technology, telecom, and infrastructure companies is seeking European funding for a large-scale AI data center project in France. The initiative, expected to cost around 10 billion euros, is intended to make a significant contribution to Europe's ambition to reduce its dependence on American and Chinese AI infrastructure. The consortium operates under the name AION and includes Capgemini, Orange, Iliad subsidiary Scaleway, investor Ardian, and energy group EDF."
"Reuters reports that the group intends to apply for funding from the new €20 billion European AI infrastructure fund announced by the European Commission late last year. According to Benoît Gaillochet, head of infrastructure investments at Ardian, the French project alone could account for about half of the total European fund. The financing is ultimately expected to come from multiple sources, including private investors, bank loans, and European subsidies."
"Brussels is seeking to reduce dependence on American hyperscalers and Chinese cloud companies by building more of its own AI capacity. Within European policy circles, such large-scale infrastructure projects are increasingly being described as AI gigafactories. This involves not only the development of AI models but, above all, access to sufficient computing power, energy, and data center infrastructure."
"The ultimate goal is a data center environment with a total capacity of one gigawatt. This would roughly double France's available data center capacity. According to him, the first construction phase would likely amount to around 100 megawatts. Such capacities are needed to meet the growing demand for AI training a"
#ai-infrastructure #european-funding #data-centers #digital-sovereignty #energy-and-computing-capacity
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