European Union: Adopted Council Regulation amending Regulation 2021/1173 as regards an EuroHPC initiative for start-ups to boost European leadership in trustworthy Artificial Intelligence

On 17 June 2024, the Council of the European Union adopted an amendment to the regulation on the European High-Performance Computing (EuroHPC) joint undertaking, expanding its objectives to include the development and operation of AI factories. These entities will provide AI supercomputing service infrastructure, making the EU's supercomputing capacity more accessible to European start-ups and SMEs for AI model training and project development. The EuroHPC joint undertaking aims to promote and support the development of AI factories featuring AI supercomputers, data centres, and AI-oriented supercomputing services. These facilities will be available to public and private users, with specific access conditions for start-ups and SMEs. Host entities will receive EU financial support covering up to 50% of both acquisition and operating costs of AI supercomputers, primarily used for developing and testing AI models and solutions. Following the Council’s decision, the legal act will be published in the Official Journal of the European Union and will enter into force 20 days later.