Alt. 2,917 m · The SummitMegaprojects of the intelligence age

The biggest bets on intelligence.

Gigawatt campuses, sovereign compute, trillion-yuan grids and data centres in orbit. We track the largest machines humanity has ever tried to build, from Europe, for the world.

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Now trackingEU AI Gigafactories: bids close 3 December

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The scale of the race

Never has so much been built, this fast, for a machine that does not exist yet.

€30bn+
public + private target
EU AI Gigafactories
Up to 7 sites, EU-wide
Planned
Bids close 3 December after a quiet extension; winners due early 2027.
$500bn
headline commitment
Stargate
US, UAE, Korea and beyond
Building
Abilene is 6 of 8 buildings in; OpenAI has left Norway.
5 GW
planned power draw
Meta Hyperion
Louisiana, US
Building
Meta's superintelligence cluster, now with AMD at its core.
¥2tn
reported, 2026 to 2030
China's national AI computing network
Ulanqab, Guizhou and other hubs
Building
Nearly 90 data centres planned in Ulanqab alone.
1M
satellites in one filing
SpaceX orbital data centres
Low Earth orbit
Planned
The boldest claim on the board, waiting on Starship.
1.4 GW
planned campus
Mistral's AI campus
Fouju, France
Building
Permit granted in July; works have begun on Europe's largest site.

Headline figures as announced or as reported by the linked source, checked 29 October 2026. Announced is not built: we track the gap.

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Lead story

Deep DiveCompute & Infrastructure

Seven Bets on a Budget Nobody Has Passed

Europe has put up to seven AI gigafactories out to tender, at €30 billion-plus, with 100,000 chips apiece at the largest sites. Only €1 billion of the EU's own money is legally committed. The rest waits on a budget that does not exist yet.

The gigafactories are the right idea at the wrong speed. Europe is not short of money or bidders; it is short of grid connections, permits and buyers for the compute. Seven medium-sized bets will not close a 33-gigawatt gap with the United States, but they can decide whether Europe owns any of the machine it will run on. Pick fewer, pick faster, and fix the grid first.

Our take

Read the deep dive · 9 min