Nvidia, the world’s leader in AI computing, showcased a powerful affirmation at last week’s VivaTech conference in Paris, laying out a trenchant vision to supercharge Europe’s AI-scape. A highlight of the event was Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s announcement that the company’s goal is to multiplication the AI computing capacity on the continent by a factor of 10 over the next two years, emphasizing Europe’s central role in the AI revolution.
In her keynote Huang spoke about how the company has taken a multi-dimensional approach, based on what he described as the desire to create “sovereign AI” – an aspiration that draws attention toward the idea of national independence when it comes to the development of AI infrastructure and the models are being tailored to local languages and local idiosyncrasies, as opposed to the cookie-cutter approach of codifying AI in English for the rest of the world to use. This strategic drive is demonstrated through a series of major partnerships and investments throughout the continent.
A big reveal involved Nvidia’s partnership with French AI startup Mistral AI, which will develop a cloud platform with a mind-bending 18,000 of Nvidia’s newest high-end Blackwell chips. It will use this whopping amount of computing to further the development and deployment of AI applications for business throughout Europe.
Outside of France, Nvidia is opening and expanding AI technology centers in Germany, Sweden, Italy, Spain, the UK and Finland. The centres will concentrate on speeding up the development and adoption of AI skills, research and infrastructure.
And the semiconductor giant didn’t stop there as it simultaneously said that it had launched the world’s first industrial AI cloud in Germany that will bring class of AI tools to manufacturing to transform the likes of BMW and Mercedes-Benz with advances in simulation and auroptition.
The effort also involves fostering the creation of sovereign large language models (LLMs) with multiple European model builders and cloud providers. These fine-tuned models will be available through Perplexity, providing a secure, multilingual AI service that meets European requirements.
Nvidia’s investment in Europe is an acknowledgment that the continent is increasingly motivated to build up its own top-tier ecosystem of AI that the continent itself, rather than importing from US tech giants.
Through these bold investments and partnerships, Nvidia isn’t just offering best-in-class hardware and software: it is directly helping build Europe’s digital sovereignty and ensure it is a global generator of innovation in AI.
