EU AI Gigafactories
By Dr. Hernani Costa — Jul 3, 2025
76 bid for EU AI hubs
Good morning! Welcome to today's edition of First AI Movers Pro—your daily dose of essential AI updates. Here's what's driving AI strategy across Europe:
🌍 76 Companies Bid for EU AI Gigafactories
The European Commission has received 76 bids from companies vying to build its first wave of AI "gigafactories," part of a €20 billion investment in four major infrastructure hubs.
This surge reflects Europe's urgent push to catch up with U.S. and Chinese innovation, ensuring it retains sovereignty in the global AI race. For EU SMEs and enterprises, this infrastructure investment signals a critical moment for AI readiness assessment and digital transformation strategy positioning.
Why it matters: These large-scale facilities could produce advanced hardware and host large-scale AI models, critical to Europe's competitiveness and strategic autonomy. Organizations pursuing AI governance & risk advisory and operational AI implementation should monitor these developments closely.
⚡ UK Prepares Energy Grid for AI Boom
The UK's AI Energy Council met to plan upgrades for the national grid capable of supporting a twenty-fold surge in compute demand over five years. Spearheaded by the Energy and Technology Secretaries, the meeting also involved Ofgem, National Grid, and tech giants such as AWS, Microsoft, and Google.
This move signals recognition that AI growth isn't just digital—it's infrastructural, requiring major investment in power capacity and resilience. For businesses planning AI tool integration and workflow automation design, energy considerations are now part of enterprise AI strategy consulting.
Fun Fact: Europe's AI gigafactory bids span industries—from hardware fabs to R&D hubs—highlighting how widespread the EU's AI ambitions are under its €20 billion InvestAI programme.
That wraps up today's briefing! Stay sharp, keep your GPUs cool, and we'll meet again tomorrow at the same byte time and same byte channel.
Until then,
The AI Sailor at First AI Movers
Written by Dr Hernani Costa and originally published at First AI Movers. Subscribe to the First AI Movers Newsletter for daily, no‑fluff AI business insights, practical and compliant AI playbooks for EU SME leaders. First AI Movers is part of Core Ventures.
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