$NVIDIA (NVDA.US)$ Deutsche Telekom and NVIDIA are constructing a €1 billion ($1.2 billion) data center in Germany to enhance European infrastructure for supporting complex artificial intelligence systems. This facility, one of the largest in Europe, is scheduled to commence operations in the first quarter of 2026, according to a statement released by Germany’s largest telecommunications operator on Tuesday.
The plan was unveiled at an event in Berlin attended by NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, Deutsche Telekom CEO Tim Höttges, leaders from SAP and Deutsche Bank, as well as two German government ministers. Their attendance highlights Germany's efforts, as Europe's largest economy, to develop its own artificial intelligence ecosystem to compete with rivals in other countries.
Jensen Huang stated in the announcement, "We are introducing NVIDIA's artificial intelligence and robotics technologies to Germany, ushering in a new era of industrial transformation for the country." He also described the project as one of the largest deployments of advanced AI chips in Germany.
SAP, Europe’s largest software company, will provide its business technology platform and applications for the data center, which will expand the existing facilities in Munich. According to Deutsche Telekom, this will increase Germany’s artificial intelligence computing power by approximately 50%.
However, the scale of this investment also highlights the gap between Europe and the United States. Tech giants such as Microsoft (MSFT.US) and Alphabet (GOOGL.US), Google's parent company, along with startups like OpenAI, are investing hundreds of billions of dollars to build artificial intelligence computing capabilities.
According to the statement, the project in Germany will utilize up to 10,000 graphics processing units (GPUs). However, this pales in comparison to the scale of large data centers planned in the United States. For example, a data center project jointly developed by SoftBank, OpenAI, and Oracle in Texas will use approximately 500,000 GPUs.
In February, the European Union announced a €200 billion plan to support artificial intelligence development within the EU, aiming to triple the region's capacity to drive such models over the next five to seven years. Deutsche Telekom has been in talks with other companies to participate in the construction of so-called AI super-factories. However, progress has been slow, and the EU has yet to establish specific bidding review processes and funding allocation plans.
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