During the Biden administration, Europe watched somewhat jealously as the United States passed legislation investing hundreds of billions of dollars into clean energy — before finally developing a package of its own.
Now that the U.S. is experiencing a second Trump term, Europeans find themselves in a similar position, this time around artificial intelligence. The Stargate project, a joint venture between OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank announced during President Donald Trump’s first week in office, promises $500 billion for AI infrastructure. Meanwhile, four major tech companies have unveiled AI infrastructure capex plans for over $300 billion in 2025 alone.
Their response, seen this week at the 2025 AI Action Summit in Paris, is so far uniquely European. International heads of state gathered at the Grand Palais, drafting consensus-oriented communiques and announcements of foundations and partnerships — with an emphasis on the difficult work of finding the right mix of regulatory actions, rules of governance, and shared risk.
Though much was made of AI safety and security, the question of how to power AI data centers was inescapable, and figured into many of the early announcements.
The topline takeaway was InvestAI, the €200 billion European AI investment plan that echoes Stargate’s structure. The billions will be put toward developing AI solutions and infrastructure on the continent, including four future AI gigafactories. And it will rely on two main sources of capital.
The first, called the EU AI Champions Initiative, is a coalition of 20 corporations, VC firms, and startups pledging €150 billion over five years to advance European AI development. The initiative includes investments in data centers, energy grids, cloud computing, and semiconductor supply chains, and calls for a streamlined regulatory framework to encourage innovation while maintaining safety standards under the EU AI Act.
The plan is led by General Catalyst and supported by companies such as ASML, Siemens, SAP, Mistral AI, and Spotify.
The second source of capital, totalling €50 billion, would be devoted to de-risking AI investments, and via a new European fund of €20 billion, support the development of four large-scale “AI gigafactories” across Europe designed for training LLMs accessible to European scientists and companies. These data centers will house upwards of 100,000 latest-generation AI chips, which according to the European Commission is four times larger than the current AI computing centers being built today.
Initial financing for InvestAI will come from existing EU programs with digital components, such as the Digital Europe Programme, Horizon Europe, and InvestEU. Member states will also be able to contribute through their cohesion funds.
Other movement at Europe’s AI-energy nexus
2025 has also ushered in a number of deals and initiatives from individual countries within the EU. France especially has been the poster child for developing AI infrastructure.
For instance, the United Arab Emirates committed between €30 billion and €50 billion to fund a large-scale AI data center and campus in France. Initial financing for the site will come from Abu Dhabi’s MGX fund, which is also involved in financing the Stargate Project in the US. This facility will be powered by one gigawatt of clean energy, leveraging France’s nuclear infrastructure.
On that note, last week President Emmanuel Macron announced plans to build up the country’s already-huge nuclear power program, saying “the time has come for a nuclear renaissance.” The country plans to invest at least €50 billion to construct six new reactors at existing nuclear sites in France, beginning in 2028 (though Macron presented a blueprint to consider building eight more by 2050). These will be next-generation pressurized water reactors.
Meanwhile, the Canadian investment firm Brookfield announced a €20 billion investment over the next five years in AI infrastructure in France, with €15 billion devoted to its Data4 data center operation to develop a network of data centers in France. The remaining €5 billion will be used for AI chips and energy infrastructure.
There are also efforts that extend beyond Europe. For instance, just yesterday International Energy Agency executive director Fatih Birol addressed world leaders on the “crucial AI-energy nexus.” He emphasized the critical role of energy in supporting AI growth, warning that inadequate power infrastructure could delay projects.
“There is no AI without energy — specifically electricity,” Birol said. “Thousands of data centres are set to be built in the next five years. But our analysis at the IEA shows that unless the energy industry, tech sector and governments collaborate to deliver the necessary power infrastructure, many projects could be delayed or even cancelled,” Birol said.
In tandem with the speech, Birol announced plans to launch an Observatory on Energy, AI, and Data Centers in April 2025 to track global electricity needs and innovations in energy-efficient AI applications. In addition, the IEA plans to release a new Special Report on Energy and AI, which will “look at pathways for meeting energy demand from data centers and AI, as well as how AI innovations could transform the ways in which energy is produced, consumed and distributed.”
A version of this story was published in the AI-Energy Nexus newsletter on February 12. Subscribe to get pieces like this — plus expert analysis, original reporting, and curated resources — in your inbox every Wednesday.
