French consortium bids to host European AI Gigafactory

Ardian, Artefact, Bull, Capgemini, the EDF group, the iliad Group, Orange and Scaleway have formed the AION consortium to bid for a European AI Gigafactory in France under the European Union’s AI Gigafactories initiative.

The project aims to give European companies access to massive computing power that is available, affordable and sovereign, allowing them to train, deploy and operate AI models with greater control over performance, cost and data sovereignty. AION brings together capabilities across supercomputers, microprocessors, quantum computing, energy, cloud platforms, sovereign AI, datacenter infrastructure, investment and industrial operations.

France is positioned as the proposed host because of its low-carbon electricity mix, digital infrastructure, data center and cloud expertise, and AI research and industrial ecosystem. The consortium is built around performance, trust, openness and responsibility, with an emphasis on open source technologies, strategic autonomy and limiting environmental impact.