Commission sets course for Europes AI leadership with an ambitious AI Continent Action Plan

The goal of the AI Continent Action Plan is to make Europe a world leader in artificial intelligence. As announced by President von der Leyen at the AI Action Summit in February 2025 in Paris, this ambitious initiative will transform Europes strong industrial base and exceptional talent into powerful engines of AI innovation and acceleration.

The race for AI leadership is still undecided. From advanced foundation models to specialized AI applications, the AI landscape in the EU is dynamic and driven by research, emerging technologies, and a thriving ecosystem of startups and scale-ups. The AI Continent Action Plan will enhance the European Unions AI innovation capabilities through actions and policies around five key pillars:

Building large-scale AI data and computing infrastructure

The Commission will strengthen Europes AI and supercomputing infrastructure with a network of AI Factories. 13 of these factories are already being deployed around Europes leading supercomputers. They will support EU AI startups, industry, and researchers in developing AI models and applications.

As announced in the Competitiveness Compass, the EU will also help set up AI Gigafactories. These will be large facilities equipped with approximately 100,000 advanced AI chips, four times more than current AI factories. They will integrate massive computing power and data centers to train and develop complex AI models at unprecedented scale. The AI Gigafactories will lead the next wave of frontier AI models and maintain the EUs strategic autonomy in critical industrial sectors and science, requiring public and private investments. A call for interest for interested consortia is published today.

Private investment in Gigafactories will be further stimulated through the InvestAI program, which will mobilize €20 billion investment for up to five AI Gigafactories across the Union.

To stimulate private sector investment in cloud capacity and data centers, the Commission will also propose a Cloud and AI Development Act. The goal is to at least triple the EUs data center capacity in the next five to seven years, prioritizing highly sustainable data centers.

Increasing access to large and high-quality data

Promoting AI innovation also requires access to large volumes of high-quality data. An important element of the Action Plan is the creation of Data Labs, bringing together and curating large, high-quality data volumes from different sources in AI Factories. A comprehensive Data Union Strategy will be launched in 2025 to create a true internal market for data that can scale up AI solutions.

Developing algorithms and fostering AI adoption in strategic EU sectors

Despite the potential of AI, only 13.5% of companies in the EU have adopted AI. To develop tailored AI solutions, boost their industrial use and full adoption in EU strategic public and private sectors, the Commission will launch the Apply AI Strategy in the coming months. The European AI innovation infrastructure, including notably the AI Factories and the European Digital Innovation Hubs (EDIHs), will play an important role in this Strategy.

Strengthening AI skills and talents

To meet the rising demand for AI talent, the Commission will facilitate international recruitment of highly skilled AI experts and researchers through initiatives such as the Talent Pool, the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action MSCA Choose Europe and AI fellowships schemes offered by the upcoming AI Skills Academy. These actions will contribute to legal migration pathways for highly skilled non-EU workers in the AI sector and attract the best European AI researchers and experts back to Europe. It will also develop educational and training programs on AI and Generative AI in key sectors, preparing the next generation of AI specialists and supporting the upskilling and reskilling of workers.

Regulatory simplification

The AI Act raises citizens trust in technology and provides investors and entrepreneurs with the legal certainty they need to scale up and deploy AI throughout Europe. The Commission will also launch the AI Act Service Desk, to help businesses comply with the AI Act. It will serve as the central point of contact and hub for information and guidance on the AI Act.

Next Steps

With this Action Plan the Commission opens today two public consultations, running until 4 June 2025, to further shape these AI Continent Action Plan initiatives.

A public consultation inviting all interested parties to share their views on the Cloud and AI Development Act
A public consultation on Apply AI to identify stakeholder priorities, challenges to the uptake of AI, and the relevance of proposed solutions and policy approaches—including additional measures to ensure the smooth and simple application of the AI Act.

A third public consultation on the Data Union Strategy will be launched in May.

In parallel, the Commission will organize dialogues with industry representatives and the public sector to help shape the Apply AI Strategy. These dialogues, together with the public consultations, will identify relevant examples of untapped potential in adopting AI technologies in specific sectors, their current integration in business and production processes, and opportunities for scaling up within these sectors and the wider economy.

Background

On 1 August 2024 the AI Act entered into force and guidelines on prohibited AI practices were published on 4 February 2025. On 24 January 2024, the Commission launched a package of measures to support European startups and SMEs in the development of trustworthy AI. On 9 July 2024 the amended EuroHPC JU Regulation entered into force, allowing the set-up of AI Factories. On 10 December 2024, seven consortia were selected to establish AI Factories, followed by six additional consortia on 12 March 2025. At the AI Action Summit in Paris on 11 February 2025, President von der Leyen announced InvestAI, an initiative to mobilize a €200 billion investment in AI across Europe.