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The European Commission recently announced the creation of seven AI Factories across Europe, a key infrastructure project intended to strengthen the Union’s position in artificial intelligence (AI). These digital factories, financed to the tune of 1.5 billion eurosaim to develop advanced AI models and sectoral solutions to support innovation and face competition with the United States and China. However, France is not among the countries selected to host these hubs.
The sites selected
THE AI Factories will be established in seven strategic locations:
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- Barcelona, Spain (Barcelona Supercomputing Center, MareNostrum 5).
- Bologna, Italy (CINECA, Bologna Tecnopolo).
- Kajaani, Finland (CSC, LUMI AIF).
- Bissen, Luxembourg (LuxProvide, Meluxina-AI).
- Linkoping, Sweden (Linköping University, MIMER).
- Stuttgart, Germany (University of Stuttgart, HammerHAI).
- Athens, Greece (GRNET, Pharos).
Five of these sites will host AI-optimized supercomputers, while facilities in Spain and Finland will also include experimentation platforms to test innovative AI models and applications. These infrastructures should double the computing capacity of EuroHPC by 2025-2026.
A noted French absence
Despite its progress in the field of AI, France is not among the hosts of AI Factories, despite the national AI plan with a budget of 1.5 billion euros or the exploitation of the supercomputer Jean Zay.
How to explain this absence? political reason or failure of French representatives within the European Commission? Political correctness will respond that the sites were selected according to rigorous criteria, including the existence of supercomputers, the quality of cross-border partnerships and the capacity to respond to the EU’s strategic priorities and that if other countries, such as Italy or Sweden were able to better align their proposals with these objectives, France could also have done so. This decision comes in a more than tense context between France and the European Commission and reflects the distancing strategy currently in progress.
By coincidence, the European Union has set the next deadline February 1, 2025 to submit new proposals for AI Factories, a few days before the Summit for Action on Artificial Intelligence (AI), bringing together at the Grand Palais, heads of state and government, leaders of international organizations, small and large companies and organized under the supervision of the President of the Republic the February 10 and 11, 2025
