The EU has launched a call for tenders to fund up to seven AI Gigafactories to train AI technologies as part of a greater bid for European tech sovereignty. On top of its existing network of 19 AI Factories, the EU initiative aims to develop advanced own AI infrastructure, which commissioner Henna Virkkunen said on Thursday (30 July) was “key to our technological sovereignty.” “It’s going to be one of the biggest, if it’s not the largest, public-private partnership that will be put in place in the European Union,” a commission official told press on Thursday. The initiative was launched in February 2025 at the AI Action Summit in Paris, with construction expected to start in 2027. “That leaves a real risk that individual AI gigafactories end up pursuing their own purposes, rather than fitting into a single coherent EU-level strategy,” she told EUobserver.