NVIDIA has signed a deal with French artificial intelligence startup Mistral AI to build new data centers in France, part of the company’s push to advance and develop artificial intelligence infrastructure in Europe, Bloomberg reports.
At a joint event between NVIDIA and VivaTech in Paris, CEO Jensen Huang said Europe needs to build AI data centers to help European countries catch up with America and China in the field. To that end, NVIDIA is urging countries to adopt the technology nationally, which will also help the company expand the market for AI accelerators.
In France, NVIDIA will partner with startup Mistral AI to launch local AI computing power. As part of the deal, the French startup will use 18,000 new Grace Blackwell accelerators in a data center in the Essonne department.
The UK will also use NVIDIA chips. AI companies Nebius Group and Nscale Global Holdings Ltd. will receive "thousands" of AI accelerators for their own platforms. NVIDIA also says there are similar plans in Italy and Armenia.
NVIDIA already has established relationships in Europe, working with over 1.5 million developers, more than 9,600 businesses and 7,000 startups. Dion Harris, the company's director of data center and high-performance computing, notes that "the only thing missing is the infrastructure." He also added that the company is working with cloud and telecommunications companies across Europe.
In addition, during a meeting with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Huang noted that the lack of infrastructure is slowing down the development of a country that has the necessary expertise and startups to be competitive in the international AI market.
The NVIDIA CEO later noted that there are currently more than 20 AI projects planned across Europe, which will be implemented over the next two years. He noted that some of these projects are AI “gigafactories,” with the largest data center containing more than 100,000 chips. Meanwhile, Huang predicts that Europe’s hardware capacity will triple next year.
Recall that in February 2025, French President Emmanuel Macron announced €109 billion in private investment in France's artificial intelligence ecosystem. Most of this money will go to building data centers.
In April, the European Union also unveiled a plan to boost the development of artificial intelligence in the region. In particular, the EU wants to simplify regulations and develop infrastructure. The United Kingdom also made a similar statement earlier this year.