EDF partners with an alliance to back the AI Gigafactory proposal.

A coalition of companies, including EDF, has formed the AION consortium to back the proposal for a European AI Gigafactory in France.

The French utility is collaborating with tech firms Artefact, Bull, and Capgemini, telecommunications companies iliad Group and Orange, along with Scaleway and private equity firm Ardian. Together, they aim to leverage their expertise in support of France's application under the European AI Gigafactories initiative.

According to the companies, the future competitiveness of European economies hinges on their access to extensive, reliable, and autonomous computing power. "The challenge is industrial, economic, and strategic: empowering European firms to train, implement, and manage their AI models within regulated performance, cost, and sovereignty constraints. This is the goal of the AION consortium's project."

Launched in June 2025 by Scaleway, AION unites public, private, and academic stakeholders to foster the development of sovereign, high-performance AI infrastructure in Europe. This initiative responds to a call for expressions of interest from the European Union and EuroHPC Joint Undertaking, which was established in 2018 to align efforts and resources in building a world-class supercomputing ecosystem.

AI Gigafactories will serve as advanced AI infrastructure hubs, expanding upon the existing EU AI Factories initiative with significantly enhanced computing power, integrated data resources, and automation.

The companies highlighted France as an ideal location for a European AI Gigafactory, citing benefits such as "abundant, competitive, sovereign, and low-carbon electricity primarily from nuclear and hydroelectric sources, strong digital infrastructure, and recognized capabilities across the entire value chain, especially in data centers, cloud computing, and high-performance computing."

The AION consortium operates on four core principles:

Performance: establishing a top-tier AI infrastructure to benefit the European economy;

Trust: enhancing European strategic autonomy by maintaining full control over the AI value chain with the involvement of sovereign entities;

Openness: advocating for open-source technologies and partnerships that benefit the European ecosystem;

Responsibility: developing AI in ways that support research, businesses, and European citizens, while being mindful of its environmental impact.

Béatrice Bigois, Group Executive Director responsible for EDF's Customers, Services and Territories division, stated that France possesses significant resources to develop AI infrastructure, particularly in terms of competitive, sovereign, and low-carbon electricity. "With this consortium, we are embracing a collective ambition: to establish a world-class European AI Gigafactory based in France. EDF aims to make a substantial contribution to this strategic initiative for Europe," she remarked.