Tracking how public and private investment shape AI development
As governments increase spending on AI, new questions emerge: does public funding translate into public value? Who benefits from large-scale AI investments and under what conditions? How do public–private partnerships redistribute risks and rewards between the public sector and tech companies? And how do industry influence and geopolitical competition shape funding priorities?
This line of work explores how investment decisions—not regulation alone—shape the development and direction of artificial intelligence in the EU, while situating these dynamics in a broader global context.
Our work focuses on making AI investment visible and contestable. By analyzing funding flows, procurement choices, and policy frameworks, we aim to strengthen democratic oversight of AI investment and help steer public resources toward outcomes that serve the public interest—including transparency, openness, environmental sustainability, and respect for fundamental rights.
The European Commission has launched a call for tenders to establish up to seven AI Gigafactories across the EU: four medium-scale sites with at least 75,000 advanced AI accelerators each and three large-scale sites with at least 100,000. According to the tender specifications, the AIGF initiative aims to strengthen the EU's sovereignty and competitiveness and serve as a “catalyst for the evolution of a resilient European AI ecosystem.”
The headline figure for the investment is €30 billion. Currently, the only firm EU commitment is around €1 billion, and member states are expected to match this amount. Any additional EU funding will depend on the next MFF. Industry partners will cover the vast majority of the project. The public contribution will come in the form of a guarantee to purchase computing access time.
Applications close on 12 November 2026. Award decisions are expected in early 2027, with construction set to begin the same year. Of the EU’s public share, only around €1 billion is currently secured; the rest depends on the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), which member states have yet to agree on.
The EU now considers AI as a strategic industrial sector—but can the investment claims behind the agenda be verified? This report maps how the EU funds AI and shows a fragmented landscape that makes public scrutiny difficult.
The European Commission published the Technological Sovereignty Package on 3 June, 2026, following several postponements and delays.
The package combines two legislative proposals — the Cloud and AI Development Act (CADA) and the “Chips Act 2.0” — with an Open Source Strategy and a Strategic Roadmap for Digitalisation and AI in Energy.
The Commission recognises the “sufficient financial firepower” as a key horizontal enabler of technological sovereignty. The headline figures mostly indicate mobilisation targets: an additional €120 billion for semiconductors, €200 billion for data centres by 2036, €100 billion for cloud, AI and gigafactories, and €2 billion over seven years for Open Source. Recognising that public budgets cannot close this gap alone, the strategy uses public funds as a "co-investment anchor" to "crowd in" private capital. The central vehicle for this is the proposed European Competitiveness Fund and its Digital Leadership Window, which will serve as the "centrepiece" for investment in the 2028–2034 EU budget.
Zuzanna Warso has been appointed as Open Future's representative to the AI Act Advisory Forum. The Forum is a permanent expert group established under the AI Act to advise the AI Board and the European Commission on the Act’s implementation. The Commission selected 174 members from more than 700 applications. The Forum’s first meeting is scheduled for 19 June.
While the European Commission announces billions in AI investment, this analysis argues that the real story lies in the conditions attached to those pledges and what they reveal about who is shaping Europe's AI industrial policy.
Europe's AI Gigafactories bet raises hard questions about whether public investment can deliver strategic autonomy or will end up subsidizing the very dependencies it seeks to overcome.
The council adopts a legislative act amending the EuroHPC Regulation (2021/1173) to legally permit the Union to invest in AI Gigafactories and quantum pillars. It formalizes the "majority ownership" rule for AI Gigafactory consortia and excludes "high-risk vendors" from the supply chains of these facilities. It creates the legal basis for the EU to own a share of the computing time, which is then redistributed to European startups.
The Commission, the European Investment Bank (EIB), and the European Investment Fund (EIF) sign a MoU to finalize the financial architecture for the Gigafactories. It mandates that the consortia must be European-led to ensure that the infrastructure itself remains a sovereign asset (even if the "engine" - the GPUs - is imported)
The EU needs purposeful, open-source, and sustainable public AI—infrastructure that serves the public, not an AI-first race driven by dominant vendors.
Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen presented the sectoral strategy for AI adoption, addressing some specific concerns about "locked-in" partnerships. In her remarks, Virkkunen introduced the "Buy European AI" preference for public procurement. She argued that the EU should prioritize European open-source solutions.
EU commits €51.5B to digital leadership in its 2028-2034 budget. Our analysis examines whether the European Competitiveness Fund represents a fundamental shift from market-driven innovation to strategic public investment in digital infrastructure.
The AI Continent Action Plan needs a stronger vision of purposeful AI deployment if it wants to achieve more than just boost commercial AI development.
The Commission published The AI Continent Action Plana plan to coordinate the build-out of 13 "AI Factories" (smaller upgrades) and the new "AI Gigafactories" (hyperscale clusters). This document first defined the Gigafactory requirement: clusters of approximately 100,000 state-of-the-art AI chips.
At the AI Summit in Paris, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced a €200 billion AI investment target. This figure includes a €50 billion top-up mobilised through the InvestAI initiative, with €20 billion allocated to fund the first four to five AI Gigafactories.
