AI Continent Action Plan

Status: In development
Type: Strategy

The AI Continent Action Plan represents a strategic shift in the European Commission’s approach to AI, emphasizing industrial competitiveness alongside regulation. In April 2025, the European Commission published the Plan, setting out its ambition for the European Union to become a global leader in Artificial Intelligence.

The communication from the Commission outlined a series of initiatives, including the rollout of AI Factories and Gigafactories, investments in cloud and data centre capacity, and measures to accelerate and facilitate AI adoption across sectors.

The observatory monitors how EU institutions translate the vision of Europe becoming a “leading AI continent” into practice. It focuses on public investment and industrial policy instruments, analyzing their implications for AI development and public digital infrastructure in Europe.

Timeline

January 16, 2026
Council Regulation amending the EuroHPC Regulation
The council adopts a legislative act amending the EuroHPC Regulation (2021/1173) to legally permit the Union to invest in AI Gigafactories and quantum pillars. It formalizes the "majority ownership" rule for AI Gigafactory consortia and excludes "high-risk vendors" from the supply chains of these facilities. It creates the legal basis for the EU to own a share of the computing time, which is then redistributed to European startups.
EUROHPC press release
December 4, 2025
Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on AI Gigafactories
The Commission, the European Investment Bank (EIB), and the European Investment Fund (EIF) sign a MoU to finalize the financial architecture for the Gigafactories. It mandates that the consortia must be European-led to ensure that the infrastructure itself remains a sovereign asset (even if the "engine" - the GPUs - is imported)
EIB press release
November 13, 2025
blog
Open letter calls for EU to use open source AI to strengthen European digital sovereignty
October 20, 2025
Opinion
Purpose, Not Power: Rethinking Europe’s Apply AI Strategy
October 8, 2025
The European Commission presents the “Apply AI” Strategy
Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen presented the sectoral strategy for AI adoption, addressing some specific concerns about "locked-in" partnerships. In her remarks, Virkkunen introduced the "Buy European AI" preference for public procurement. She argued that the EU should prioritize European open-source solutions.
EC press release
July 17, 2025
Analysis
A First Look at the EU’s Budget Proposal and the Push for “Digital Leadership”
April 10, 2025
Opinion
From AI Factories to Public Value
April 9, 2025
The AI Continent Action Plan and the call for the expression of interest in AI Gigafactories
The Commission published The AI Continent Action Plana plan to coordinate the build-out of 13 "AI Factories" (smaller upgrades) and the new "AI Gigafactories" (hyperscale clusters). This document first defined the Gigafactory requirement: clusters of approximately 100,000 state-of-the-art AI chips.
EC Press release
February 11, 2025
The Paris AI Action Summit
At the AI Summit in Paris, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced a €200 billion AI investment target. This figure includes a €50 billion top-up mobilised through the InvestAI initiative, with €20 billion allocated to fund the first four to five AI Gigafactories.
EC Press release
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