The European Parliament’s Industry, Research, and Energy committee, today (20 March) voted to improve access for small businesses and startups to artificial intelligence (AI) supercomputers, as well as strengthen environmental standards for such infrastructure.

Europe is looking to nurture innovation in AI at home. However, this requires large amounts of computational power. The supply of data centers with supercomputers oriented towards training AI models — dubbed AI factories by EU policymakers — is not only lacking relative to the expected growth of demand but concentrated in the hands of a few companies.

To tackle these issues in the market and create accessible AI factories, policymakers looked to the existing European High-Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU), which aims to establish eight connected supercomputers across member states.

Today, the committee passed draft amendments to the EuroHPC JU, particularly focusing on AI applications. These changes will then be voted on, at the Strasbourg plenary on 24 April, though this is subject to change.

The amendments also look to improve the environmental footprint of AI data centers through impact assessments, taking into account the supercomputers’ entire life cycle, and improving their energy efficiency.

The AI Act which aims to ensure the safe development of technology and boost innovation, was passed last week. Infrastructure like AI factories is vital to the legislation’s innovation goals.

“We have the infrastructure covered. We also need to invest in training,” said Maria da Graça Carvalho, a Portugues member of the European People’s Party (EPP) and rapporteur for the amendments, at the committee today.

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