Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has been advocating for the concept of “sovereign AI” since 2023. Now, Europe is beginning to take notice and respond. The idea emphasizes that each nation has unique language, knowledge, history, and culture—and therefore must develop and control its own AI systems.
Last week, the CEO of the AI chip giant embarked on a tour of Europe’s key capitals London, Paris, and Berlin—unveiling a series of projects and partnerships while drawing attention to the region’s shortage of AI infrastructure. As concerns grow among European leaders about the continent’s reliance on a few dominant U.S. tech firms—and following tensions with former U.S. President Donald Trump Huang’s vision is beginning to resonate.
“We are going to invest billions here … but Europe needs to move into AI quickly,” Huang stated in Paris on Wednesday.
Just days earlier, on Monday, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced a £1 billion ($1.35 billion) investment to boost computing power, declaring the country’s ambition “to be an AI maker and not an AI taker” in the global tech race.
At VivaTech, one of the world’s largest tech conferences, French President Emmanuel Macron described the development of AI infrastructure as “our fight for sovereignty.”
Following Nvidia’s announcement of a new AI cloud platform in Germany in partnership with Deutsche Telekom, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz emphasized the importance of digital sovereignty and securing the economic future of Europe’s largest economy.
Europe continues to trail behind the U.S. and China in AI and cloud infrastructure, as much of its cloud services are dominated by American tech giants like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google. Meanwhile, Europe has only a handful of smaller AI players, such as Mistral, attempting to compete with their U.S. counterparts.
“There’s no reason why Europe shouldn’t have tech champions,” said 31-year-old Mistral CEO Arthur Mensch, sitting beside Huang, who has led Nvidia for more than three decades, at a panel at VivaTech.
“This is a gigantic dream.”
GIGAFACTORY PLANS UNLEASHED
In France, Mistral has partnered with Nvidia to build a data centre to power the AI needs of European companies with a homegrown alternative.
It will use 18,000 of the latest Nvidia AI chips in the first phase, with plans to expand across multiple sites in 2026.
In February, the European Union unveiled a $20 billion initiative to establish four “AI gigafactories” aimed at reducing reliance on U.S. tech companies.
According to an EU official speaking to Reuters, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has been in contact with the European Commission and indicated plans to allocate some of the company’s chip production to support these facilities in Europe.
Nvidia’s Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) are essential components for powering AI data centers worldwide from the U.S. and Japan to India and the Middle East.
Oluchi