Read our Privacy noticeThe European Union is offering 10 billion euros ($11.4 billion) in funding for firms to erect seven AI gigafactories as it seeks to close the AI gap with U.S. and China, the 27-nation bloc's executive said on Thursday. “Access to the raw scale of computing power within AI gigafactories is a strategic necessity for Europe as AI development accelerates,” said Henna Virkkunen, the Commission executive vice president overseeing tech sovereignty. The EU's current computing power — delivered by a network of 19 AI data centers from Finland to Spain — will more than double when these seven gigafactories come online. China has an enormous electrical power capacity for data centers while the U.S. bags the lion's share of private AI investment. France's Mistral now runs the one of the largest AI data center in the EU so far at its campus in Paris.