Industriepolitischer Roundtable in Brüssel zu AI Gigafactories

The digital transformation poses profound challenges for both businesses and society. If Europe wants to remain competitive on the global stage, it must defend and expand its leadership in key digital technologies. The international race – particularly with the United States and China – makes this task all the more urgent.

Artificial intelligence is one of the central enabling technologies of the digital economy, with far-reaching impact across virtually all sectors. Its potential includes major gains in productivity, new business models, and advanced industrial applications.

With the Action Plan for the AI Continent and the announced establishment of AI Gigafactories, the European Commission has taken a strong step toward reinforcing Europe’s technological sovereignty and laying the base for AI businesses and projects to grow.

However, this approach brings strategic questions to the fore:

• Can large-scale infrastructure projects genuinely catalyze innovation – or does true innovation emerge where there is a clear entrepreneurial need and concrete application context?
• Does scaling happen because infrastructure leads the way or only where market dynamics demand it?
• And how can public investment and private innovation logic be brought into balance without centralizing control over innovation?

We would like to explore these and other issues regarding the EU’s AI Strategy and the infrastructure ambition with AI Gigafactories with fellow experts from industry, science and politics in the context of a high-level roundtable discussion in Brussels.

We aim to explore what strategic public investments, governance models, and innovation policies are needed to ensure that such infrastructure becomes a catalyst for competitive and democratically grounded AI development in Europe. We cordially invite you to the Brussels event:

Roundtable Discussion on AI Gigafactories

Wednesday, 15 October 2025

10:00 – 11:30

Sofitel, Place Jourdan 1, 1040 Brussels

Please refer to Mr Fritjof Rindermann, Senior Economic Policy Advisor, for any questions: fr@spd-wirtschaftsforum.de.