DataCrunch adds to Europe’s sovereign AI push

• Helsinki-based DataCrunch is a growing voice in European AI sovereignty
• It has raised $64m to fuel its ambitions, which include an AI gigafactory in Latvia

It’s been a big week for sovereign AI in Europe: Following news that French generative AI (GenAI) developer Mistral AI, a big proponent of data sovereignty, has raised €1.7bn to help it “keep pushing the frontier of AI to tackle the most critical and sophisticated technological challenges faced by strategic industries,” Helsinki, Finland-based AI cloud services specialist DataCrunch has announced a $64m funding round that will help it to accelerate “European AI sovereignty through renewable cloud infrastructure”.    

The company sells access to its GPU (graphics processing unit)-based cloud infrastructure to enterprises, claiming that it makes it quick, easy and affordable for companies to access the AI processing resources they need, even boasting that companies can save up to 90% compared with hyperscaler prices (and without the “hassles and hurdles”). 

It currently has two datacentres in Finland (Helsinki area) and one in Iceland, all of which are powered by renewable energy. It has also started the process of building a new datacentre in Akaa, Finland.

Following the launch of a number of new services during the first half of this year – it claims to have been one of the first companies in the world to offer on-demand access to an Nvidia HGX B200 platform – it plans to use its new funding to “accelerate our journey to becoming Europe’s first AI cloud hyperscaler” through the deployment of Nvidia’s latest GPU platforms and the expansion of its datacentre facilities.

And it’s really pushing the sovereignty angle hard. “Europe’s gap in cloud capacity remains a critical challenge for European companies because of their dependence on foreign cloud providers, primarily US hyperscalers. This reliance creates challenges around data security, regulatory compliance, and cost efficiency for startups, enterprises, research institutions and the public sector alike. We believe that European innovators deserve better. That’s why DataCrunch is building a sovereign, secure, and scalable AI cloud, keeping your data in Europe, fully GDPR-compliant, and outside the reach of the US Cloud Act,” the company stated in its funding announcement. 

Part of its expansion plan involves bidding, with partners, to build and run one of the AI gigafactories – large-scale AI datacentres equipped with about 100,000 GPUs – that the European Commission (EC) is helping to fund. DataCrunch has submitted a proposal to the EC, with the support of the Republic of Latvia and a growing network of partner organisations, “to build one of Europe’s first AI gigafactories, a dedicated facility for model training and inference with up to 100,000 accelerators. The proposed AI gigafactory aims to provide secure compute capacity within EU borders, supporting startups, SMEs and research institutions that need reliable access to cutting-edge AI infrastructure,” the company explained. 

The EC noted in July that it had already received 76 proposals from companies wanting to develop Europe’s AI gigafactories. In April, the EC outlined a ‘sovereign’ plan to build a “network” of AI factories – 13 of which are already being deployed – and construct AI gigafactories in its AI Continent Action Plan, noting that €20bn of EC funding will be made available through the new InvestAI initiative to those prepared to pump private funds into the gigafactory developments. In total, InvestAI aims to “mobilise €200bn for investment in AI”. Deutsche Telekom has already put itself forward very publicly, announcing in June its plans for a gigafactory with Nvidia, while Catalan News has reported that a consortium led by Telefónica and including MásOrange is aiming to pitch a €5bn proposal for an AI gigafactory in Spain. 

Overall, the EC’s aim is to at least triple the EU’s datacentre capacity over the course of the next five to seven years, with “highly sustainable datacentres” as the priority. 

With its 100% renewable energy track record, the DataCrunch proposal certainly fits that sustainability bill. 

- Ray Le Maistre, Editorial Director, TelecomTV