The companies that responded to the commission’s call for expression of interest included European data center operators, telecoms and power suppliers, as well as both European and global technology companies and investors, the European Commission said in a Monday press release.

“The high number of proposals received went well beyond the Commission expectations,” the release said. “It is a clear testament to the very high momentum and interest in AI across Europe, and especially in AI gigafactories.”

The commission’s call for expression of interest was meant to gather early insights, and the responses are not formal applications, the release said. The commission plans to issue an official call for proposals in the fourth quarter.

The companies that responded proposed setting up AI gigafactories at 60 different sites across 16 European Union member states, per the release.

“AI gigafactories will be state-of-the-art, large-scale AI compute and data storage hubs, purpose-built to develop, train and deploy next-generation AI models and applications at hyperscale, e.g. models with hundreds of trillions of parameters,” the release said. “By integrating vast computing power, energy-efficient data centres and AI-driven automation, these facilities will set new benchmarks for AI model training, inference and deployment.”

It was reported April 9 that the European Commission issued a report outlining its strategy to close the gap in AI innovation and capacity with the U.S. and China and establish Europe as a “leading AI continent.”

The plan called for developing at least five AI gigafactories to be funded through public-private partnerships via the European High-Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC).

It also called for creating a network of AI factories throughout Europe, with each serving as a hub for connecting universities, startups, businesses, public sector organizations and financial stakeholders with “supercomputing sectors” to foster innovation.

It was reported in January that President Donald Trump’s announcement of Stargate, a $500 billion investment in AI infrastructure, spurred calls from European CEOs for a similar initiative in Europe.

One study found that the EU needs to invest €800 billion (about $942 billion) a year through 2030 to improve its competitiveness.