The European Commission (EC) pledged to raise €200 billion for investment in AI across the region, a move announced at the AI Action Summit in Paris.

The programme, dubbed InvestAI, is set to combine public and private investments to boost AI research, infrastructure and deployment across the European Union (EU). The plan also includes a €20 billion European fund to support the development of large-scale AI gigafactories across the region to support advanced AI model training.

Initial financing for InvestAI will be sourced from existing EU programmes for digital initiatives, including the Digital Europe Programme and InvestEU. Additionally, EU member states can allocate funds from designated cohesion budgets to support the initiative. Meanwhile, the AI gigafactories will be funded through a combination of grants and equity.

EC president Ursula von der Leyen unveiled the initiative, stating it will “enable all our scientists and companies – not just the biggest – to develop the most advanced very large models needed to make Europe an AI continent”.

The announcement came shortly after French President Emmanuel Macron revealed a €109 billion investment plan to support AI development in the country at the Paris summit. Macron described the investment as “the equivalent for France of what the US has announced with Stargate”, referring to the President Donald Trump-backed $500 billion AI joint venture involving OpenAI.

Pushback against AI safety
Alongside the investment announcement, the EU also promoted an international declaration on AI safety at the summit, backed by around 60 countries including China, India and Germany. The non-binding agreement calls for AI to be “ethical, safe, secure, and trustworthy”.

However, the US and UK declined to sign the agreement, citing concerns about its potential impact on innovation and national security. Financial Times reported the US argued that excessive regulation could hamper AI innovation and took particular issue with the communique’s multilateral language. Vice President JD Vance described the regulations as “overly precautionary” and stated the Trump administration will “ensure that the most powerful AI systems are built in the US”.

Meanwhile, UK representatives reportedly stated the declaration “didn’t provide enough practical clarity on global governance, nor sufficiently address harder questions around national security”.