On 9 April 2025, the European Commission presented the AI Continent Action Plan to make EU a world leader in artificial intelligence (AI). The idea was first shared by President Ursula von der Leyen at a major AI summit in Paris earlier this year but now we have the details.
The Action Plan rests on five pillars: infrastructure, data access, adoption in key sectors, talent development and regulatory simplification. Together, they form a comprehensive roadmap for strengthening the EU’s position in the rapidly evolving global AI landscape.
A closer examination of these pillars reveals further details.
Building a large-scale AI data and computing infrastructure
Key takeaway:
13 AI Factories are already under deployment across Member States.
EU will also help establishing up to 5 AI gigafactories with approximately 100,000 state-of-the-art AI chips, four times more than current AI factories.
InvestAI will mobilise €20 billion in public-private investment to build up to 5 Gigafactories.
Call for Expression of Interest was launched for potential consortia and will close on 20 June.
At the heart of the plan is a significant investment in AI infrastructure. The EU is setting up AI Factories next to Europe’s most powerful supercomputers. These centres will help startups, researchers, and businesses build AI systems and test new ideas.
The Commission also wants to build AI Gigafactories. These will have around 100,000 advanced AI chips, four times more than the AI Factories, and the goal is to train the most powerful AI models in the world. The EU will invest €20 billion to support up to five of these new Gigafactories. A call for expression of interest for interested consortia was published and will be open until 20 June 2025, 17h00.
This physical expansion will be accompanied by a new legislative proposal: the Cloud and AI Development Act for which a public consultation is currently open (see the following section "Next Steps" for further details and in “Useful links” for the link). The goal is to at least triple the EU's data centre capacity in the next five to seven years, prioritising highly sustainable data centres.
Increasing access to large and 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 growing interest in AI, only about 13.5% of European companies currently use AI technologies. To close this gap, the Commission will soon launch the Apply AI Strategy, which will promote its industrial use and full adoption in EU strategic public and private sectors.
Strengthening AI skills and talents
To meet 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 empower both young professionals and experienced workers to take part in Europe’s AI future while creating legal pathways for highly skilled migrants in this field.
Regulatory simplification
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
To further shape these initiatives, the Commission opened also two public consultations, running until 4 June 2025:
A public consultation where anyone interested can share their views on the Cloud and AI Development Act. The Commission would like to gather different stakeholder views on the EU’s capacity in cloud and edge computing infrastructure, especially in light of increasing data volumes and demand for computing resources.
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 an easier application of the AI Act.
A third public consultation on Data Union Strategy will be launched in May.
In parallel, the Commission will organise dialogues with industry representatives and the public sector to help shape the Apply AI Strategy.
Commission tech chief Henna Virkkunen said the EU is “committed” to the act’s main goals but said the Commission is looking into the “administrative burden” and considering “some reporting obligations we could cut.”
BACKGROUND
The AI Continent Action Plan builds on a series of recent policy milestones, including the enforcement of the AI Act and the launch of InvestAI. These initiatives are aimed at making the EU digitally competitive in a short time, as it needs to catch up compared to its competitors.
The EU AI Act, Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, aims to establish a legal framework for artificial intelligence (AI) in the EU and is the first regulation in the world to address AI in this comprehensive manner. It seeks to ensure that AI is used safely, ethically, and transparently while fostering innovation. The Act categorizes AI systems into four risk levels, imposing stricter requirements for higher-risk systems. These include data quality, transparency, accountability, and human oversight.
At the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit in Paris (Feb 11, 2025), Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has launched InvestAI, an initiative to mobilise €200 billion for investment in AI, including a new European fund of €20 billion for AI gigafactories. This large AI infrastructure is needed to allow open, collaborative development of the most complex AI models and to make Europe an AI continent.
