Project highlights infrastructure gap between Europe and the US
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Nvidia and Deutsche Telekom are collaborating on a major €1 billion data centre project in Germany. This state-of-the-art facility, which is set to become operational by early 2026, will be one of the largest in Europe, specifically designed to support complex AI systems and improve infrastructure capabilities across the continent.
The announcement was made during a large event in Berlin, attended by key figures from both companies as well as representatives from leading German organisations such as SAP and Deutsche Bank. The presence of German ministers underscored the country’s commitment to building a robust AI ecosystem in order to compete effectively with the United States and China.
Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, emphasised the project’s transformative potential and the role it will play in ushering in a new era of industrial innovation for Germany through the deployment of advanced AI chips. SAP, Europe’s largest software provider, will bring its technology platform and enterprise applications to the data centre, which will expand an existing facility in Munich. Deutsche Telekom expects the move will increase Germany’s total AI computing power by around 50%.
Despite the scale of the investment, the project also highlights the gap between Europe and the US in the development of AI infrastructure. Major American technology companies like Microsoft and Google, as well as start-ups like OpenAI, are investing hundreds of billions of dollars to build massive AI computing capacities.
The German data centre will use up to 10,000 advanced graphics processing units (GPUs), but this figure pales in comparison to the scale of major facilities planned in the US. For example, one project in Texas involving SoftBank, OpenAI, and Oracle is expected to use about 500,000 GPUs.
The European Union has drawn up a €200 billion plan to accelerate AI development within the bloc. The aim is to triple the energy supply for these systems in the next five to seven years.
Deutsche Telekom is in talks with other companies to participate in the construction of so-called ‘AI gigafactories’. However, progress in this area has been slow, and the EU is still working on refining its processes for assessing bids and allocating funding for these ambitious projects.
Business AM