European AI infrastructure expansion again! NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA.US) joins hands with Deutsche Telekom (DTEGY.US) to plan to invest 1 billion euros in building data centers in Germany.

NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA.US) and Deutsche Telekom AG (DTEGY.US) are preparing to announce a plan to build a 1 billion data center in Germany. The project is part of the overall initiative to expand infrastructure in Europe and provide computing power for artificial intelligence systems. According to sources, the two companies will jointly invest in the $1.2 billion (approximately 1 billion) project. Europe's largest software company, SAP SE (SAP.US), will be a customer of this data center. It is reported that the CEOs of Deutsche Telekom, Tim Httges, NVIDIA Corporation, Jensen Huang, SAP, Christian Klein, and Germany's Minister for Digital Affairs, Karsten Wildberger, are expected to officially announce the plan at an event in Berlin next month. For months, European policymakers and tech industry executives have been discussing the need for Europe to build its own artificial intelligence ecosystem to compete with rivals such as the United States and China. In the US alone, tech companies like Microsoft Corporation (MSFT.US) and Alphabet Inc. have pledged billions of dollars to build AI computing facilities. Huang and others have criticized Europe for two main issues: slow progress in building domestic AI infrastructure and lack of swift action in supporting companies to use AI technology while ensuring data remains within Europe. Following this news, the American Depositary Receipt (ADR) of Deutsche Telekom rose 2.2% at one point, reaching a daily high, and closed up 1.66% on Monday. However, compared to the "megawatt-scale" data center projects announced globally, the 1 billion data center planned by NVIDIA Corporation and Deutsche Telekom is smaller in scale. The German data center is expected to use 10,000 advanced graphics processing units (GPUs), while SoftBank Group Corp. and others are building a data center in Texas with around 500,000 GPUs. Currently, NVIDIA Corporation, Deutsche Telekom, and SAP have not made any statements on this matter, and the German Ministry of Digital Affairs has not responded to requests for comments. Sources reveal that the three companies plan to build the data center in Munich. In February of this year, the EU announced a 200 billion plan to support the development of artificial intelligence in Europe with the goal of tripling the region's AI computing power in the next 5 to 7 years. Deutsche Telekom had previously been in talks with other companies to participate in the construction of AI "gigafactories", but progress has been slow as the EU has not clearly stated how projects will be reviewed and funds allocated.