As part of the EU committee’s strategy to make Europe more competitive with Artificial Intelligence (AI), Brussels wants to cover the continent with a network of AI factories and Supercomputers also in Austria.
The “AI Factory Austria” (AI: AT), which is intended to strengthen the domestic AI ecosystem for research, companies and public institutions, is already in the starting blocks, as the project participants explained on Tuesday during an online event.
“We are currently in start -up mode. The kick -off will take place in September, we will offer the first services of October,” says Andreas Kugi, scientific director of the Austrian Institute for Technology (AIT). Further steps are followed by an extensive range of support and a new computer infrastructure. With the “AI Gigafactory”, for which Vienna has recently been applied, this is not comparable: “The AI factory becomes a workshop and test laboratory, which supports the next innovation step,” says Kugi. The Gigafactory, on the other hand, is about large industrial development and huge computer services.
For the “AI Factory Austria” an AI-hub is first set up, which is intended to serve as a one-stop shop, coworking space and central contact point for the community. The purchase of a new AI optimized supercomputer is also planned. According to project manager Mario Drobics, 50 million euros will be invested for the purchase and operation for five years. It should be available in January 2027. The Technical University (TU) Vienna is intended as a location. In the case of areas of application, they want to concentrate on biotechnology, industrial production, physics and public administration for the time being.
Co-working space is located in Vienna
Another 30 million current to software services for data management and AI applications, as well as the AI hub, which includes advice, support, support for the use of the supercomputer, training and ethical and regulatory support. Markus Stöhr, also explained, explained that the co-working space as a large physical meeting point for start-ups, researchers and companies in Vienna will be available as a large physical meeting point for start-ups, researchers and companies.
The project is led by Advanced Computing Austria (ACA) and the AIT in collaboration with scientific and industrial partners. Financing is carried out by the European High Performance Computing (EuroHPC) Joint Under -Ond -company program of the European Union. According to earlier information, 40 million euros are thrown away by the EU, which must be doubled by the federal government. There are a total of AI factories in 13 EU countries or are under construction.
In addition to AIT and ACA, a subsidiary of Technical Vienna, University of Vienna and the HPC Austria Association, in the “AI Factory Austria” TU Vienna, the Uniis Vienna, Innsbruck and Linz, University of Natural Resources Int and the EODC Earth Earth Earth. Voorbading Data Center for Waterbedaden.
Biggest Puzzle Stone “Ai Gigafactory”
Another, considerably larger puzzle stone on the way to the competitiveness of Europe are the “gigafabriken”. Only a few days ago, the city of Vienna requested the settlement of a corresponding AI data center. In total, in the EU with investments of 20 billion euros, a maximum of five of these ground “AI gigafactories” must be created. These build on the “AI factories” initiative, but would have considerably more computing power, data sources and automation to develop, train and operate complex AI models. We are talking about more than 100,000 specialized AI processors per gigafactory, which corresponds to a multiplication of the European capacities of today.
Investments of a maximum of five billion euros per “AI Gigafactory” must be borne by the private sector and up to 35 percent of the public funds. The project enables companies and research institutions to gain access to powerful computer capacity and thus supplement the existing network, the city that was informed on Friday in a broadcast in which the federal, city of Vienna, social partners and companies were referred. The next step is an in-depth selection and application process on the part of the EU in the fourth quarter of 2025. The possible start date for the “AI Gigafactory” is mentioned in 2028.
Source: Krone
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