AI Continent Action Plan - Q&A

AI Factories are open and dynamic AI ecosystems formed around the public network of Europe’s world-leading EuroHPC supercomputers. They support the EU AI industrial and research ecosystem by bringing together the necessary ingredients – computer power, data, and talent – to create cutting-edge, trustworthy AI models and applications. They foster collaboration across Europe, unlocking the potential of AI companies, in particular SMEs and start-ups, universities, and industry. AI Factories serve as one-stop shops driving advancements in AI applications across various sectors, such as health, manufacturing, climate, finance, and more.  

In February 2025, at the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Action Summit in Paris, President von der Leyen launched InvestAI, an initiative to mobilise €200 billion for investment in AI. This includes the InvestAI facility, to be developed with the European Investment Bank Group with a view to mobilise €20 billion investments to establish AI Gigafactories.

The European Union is committed to the twin digital and green transition – which should mutually support each other. The initiatives of the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking, such as AI Factories, select hosting sites based on specific criteria that prioritise energy efficiency and environmental sustainability. Green computing will continue to be pursued through energy-efficient supercomputers optimised for AI, using techniques such as dynamic power saving and re-use techniques like advanced cooling and recycling of the heat produced. The JUPITER exascale supercomputer under installation in Jülich is a prime example of European excellence in addressing energy efficiency. It is expected to be one of the world’s top three most powerful supercomputers and has been assessed as the greenest supercomputer in the world. 

The Commission will continue to work on initiatives to ensure that data centres are climate neutral, highly energy efficient and sustainable by 2030.

In particular, the Cloud and AI Development Act and the Strategic roadmap for digitalisation and AI in the energy sector will address measures to facilitate the sustainable integration of data centres into the energy system and other energy-related issues. In the same vein, the Water Resilience Strategy to be adopted in Q2 2025 will look into increasing circularity, water reuse and efficiency.

The Apply AI Strategy will launch concrete actions to accelerate AI adoption and drive innovation across strategic EU sectors, including the public sector. It will encourage AI solutions ‘made in Europe’, focusing on industrial sectors where EU know-how could contribute to further increasing competitiveness gains. 

EDIHs are one-stop shops supporting companies and public sector organisations to adopt digital solutions – particularly AI – and become more competitive. They provide access to technical expertise and testing, as well as the possibility to test before investing in AI solutions. EDIHs offer innovation services such as financing advice, training and skills development, central to successful AI adoption. EDIHs are collaborating closely with the EU AI Innovation infrastructures, including AI factories, Testing and Experimentation Facilities and AI regulatory sandboxes. Each EDIH serves as an access point to the entire EDIH Network, providing local companies and public actors with access to support from other EDIHs with necessary expertise. This ensures that all stakeholders support they need, wherever it is available in Europe.

The primary goal of the Cloud and AI Development Act is to support a European cloud offer, in terms of capacity and services, to match the needs of the AI Continent and to reinforce EU competitiveness. The Act aims to at least triple the EU’s data centre capacity in the next 5-7 years and bring it to a level where it fully meets the needs of businesses and public administrations by 2035. The Act will also tackle the barriers to the expansion of data centre capacity and incentivise private investment. It will ensure that operators of sustainable data centres benefit from faster permit-granting procedures and find access to land, finance, and energy in the EU. In addition, the Act will improve the choice of cloud service providers in the EU single market, particularly for highly secure EU-based cloud services for highly critical use cases. 

Building on the increased data availability from the Data Act and Data Governance Act, the Commission will shift its focus to harnessing the potential of data for innovation and development of generative AI, among other things, to boost our competitiveness and become an AI continent. To achieve this, the Commission will put forward a European Data Union Strategy in the second half of 2025, with a focus on making more data available for AI and ensuring a simplified, clear and coherent legal framework for businesses and administrations to share data seamlessly and at scale, while respecting high privacy and security standards. 

The Data Union Strategy will focus on strengthening Europe’s data ecosystem by:

• Enhancing interoperability and data availability
• Improving data sharing across sectors and borders
• Ensuring governance structures are efficient and effective

It will also reduce the complexity and administrative burden of current legislation.

In this context, Data Labs will play an important role, bringing together and organising data from different sources. They will seek out data that participants in Europe’s Common Data Spaces make available, for example, against payment or other reward.

AI Factories may be used by companies or research entities that already have the relevant data. The exact service offering will be defined at a later stage and may vary from AI Factory to AI Factory. It could include one or several of the following: cleaning and enriching datasets (e.g. augmentation with synthetic data), data normalisation, anonymisation, production of synthetic data. They might also offer regulatory compliance, including competition-law-compliant data pooling services, helping companies to share data while adhering to antitrust rules.

To enlarge the EU’s pool of AI talent in Europe, the Commission will train the next generation of AI specialists based in the EU and promote the attraction and retention of international and European AI experts currently living in non-EU countries, in line with the workstreams of the Union of Skills and the STEM Education Strategic Plan.

To prepare a pipeline of AI specialists ‘trained in Europe’, the Commission will significantly increase the overall offer of European Bachelors’ degrees, Masters’ degrees, and PhDs in AI, including via the AI Skills Academy, for which a call for proposal will open on 15 April 2025. 

The AI Skills Academy offers education and training programmes on AI and in particular generative AI. It skill, upskill or reskill students and professionals in key sectors and develop a pilot generative AI-focused degree. This will enable top-level experts in generative AI to educate and train the AI Skills Academy’s students, while advancing their own research in the field. The Academy will also offer an AI apprenticeship programme and ‘returnship’ schemes for female AI professionals. 

In line with the Union of Skills, the Commission will also facilitate legal migration pathways for highly skilled non-EU nationals via the EU Talent Pool, Multiple Purpose Legal Gateway Offices, and Talent Partnerships. Moreover, the Commission will pilot a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action – ‘MSCA Choose Europe’ – that will be open to all research fields, allowing research institutions such as universities and research infrastructures to attract, develop and retain excellent international AI researchers. The pilot co-funds recruitment programmes, enabling them to link their MSCA grants to long-term prospects within the institution including, for example, competitions for permanent positions. 
A similar aim will be pursued by AI fellowships, which will also incentivise the return of European AI researchers and young professionals living abroad.

Supporting the 2030 Roadmap on the future of digital education and skills and its AI in Education initiative, as well as in line with the Union of Skills, the AI Continent Action Plan recognises the importance of upskilling and reskilling workers and the wider EU population in the use of AI. In this context, the Commission will rely on the network of the European Digital Innovation Hubs to increase their skills and training services. Moreover, it will raise awareness on AI literacy and foster dialogue on AI for all, notably by promoting dissemination activities and by maintaining a repository of AI literacy initiatives.

It is a priority of the Commission to ensure a smooth implementation of the AI Act and provide clarity about the applicable rules to stakeholders. The Commission will launch the AI Act Service Desk, a central information hub on the AI Act that will allow stakeholders to ask for help and receive tailor-made answers.

The AI Act Service Desk will complete the EU’s ecosystem of support for stakeholders on the AI Act, which includes EDIHs, forthcoming AI regulatory sandboxes, the AI Pact and the guidance on the AI Act.

The Apply AI Consultation will gather feedback from stakeholders on their challenges in navigating the AI Act. This feedback will inform the development of further support measures, such as guidance documents, self-assessment tools and templates for obligations. It will also inform the preparations of our broader evaluation on the need to simplify digital legislation.