Eight French firms have joined forces under the AION banner to compete for a European Union artificial intelligence (AI) Gigafactory designation, with France as the proposed host nation.
The consortium brings together Ardian, Artefact, Bull, Capgemini, EDF, Iliad, Orange and Scaleway — spanning private equity, energy, telecoms, cloud computing and IT services.
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According to Bloomberg, the bid carries a value of €10bn ($11.60bn).
Collectively, the group covers the full breadth of infrastructure requirements, from supercomputers and microprocessors to quantum computing, sovereign AI, cloud platforms and data centre operations.
A wider network of academic, technology and industrial partners — among them Le Crédit Agricole, Hugging Face, INRIA, Nokia, Schneider Electric and Sopra Steria — will also support the initiative.
Orange Group CEO Christel Heydemann said: “France has unique assets to shape the next chapter of European AI – front-ranking digital infrastructure, low-carbon energy, and one of the most dynamic research and innovation ecosystems in Europe.
“For Orange, joining the AION consortium reflects our strong conviction that Europe needs collective action to create a powerful, open and inclusive European AI to drive the continent’s competitiveness.”
AION has anchored its proposal on four principles: “performance”, “trust”, “openness” and “responsibility”.
Central to the trust dimension is maintaining European control across the entire AI value chain, from hardware through to open-source software.
The responsibility element addresses the environmental impact of large-scale AI infrastructure.
France’s heavy reliance on nuclear and hydroelectric power was highlighted as a competitive advantage in hosting a facility of this scale, complemented by the country’s established data centre capacity and high-performance computing expertise.
The consortium has signalled that additional French and European partners are welcome to join the effort.
Ardian Europe infrastructure head Benoît Gaillochet added: “It’s time to build a European AI ecosystem together, based on world-class European infrastructure and underpinned by France’s outstanding low-carbon energy capabilities.
“United by this ambition, we are delighted to be teaming up with our friends at the iliad Group and the Orange group to join and steer the AION consortium, which will also be supported by other major industrial and tech players.”
