European Council adopts regulation on use of supercomputing in AI development

With the adopted regulation, the EuroHPC joint undertaking will promote and operate AI factories. These facilities will consist of an AI supercomputer, an associated data center, and AI-oriented supercomputing services. The activities of AI factories will be accessible to both public and private users, with special access conditions for start-ups and small and medium-sized enterprises. The host entities of AI factories will be eligible for EU financial support to cover up to 50% of the acquisition costs of AI supercomputers and up to 50% of their operating costs. AI supercomputers will primarily be used to develop and test AI training models, applications, and solutions. Following the Council's approval, the legal act has been adopted. In the coming days, the amendment to the regulation will be published in the Official Journal of the European Union and will enter into force 20 days later. The EuroHPC joint undertaking was created in 2018 to coordinate efforts to make Europe a world leader in supercomputing. Until now, the main objectives of the EuroHPC joint undertaking have been to develop, deploy, extend, and maintain the EU's supercomputing, quantum computing, and data infrastructure ecosystem, promote its use, support the development of supercomputing system components, technologies, and knowledge, and support the development of computing skills for European science and industry. Since its creation, the EuroHPC joint undertaking has procured nine supercomputers, located across Europe. On 24 January 2024, the Commission proposed a regulation to amend the current legal framework (Council regulation (EU) 2021/1173), introducing an additional objective for the joint undertaking: supporting the development of an AI ecosystem in the EU by developing and operating AI factories. Member states reached political agreement on the amendment on 23 May.