Nvidia spreads its influence in Europe with major AI deals

On Wednesday, Nvidia announced a series of partnerships with European countries and companies, covering infrastructure and software, as it seeks to maintain its central role in the global artificial intelligence space.

Chief Executive Jensen Huang made the announcement during his keynote address at his firm’s GTC event in Paris, France. As reported by CNBC, this presentation was part of his ongoing tour of Europe.

The company has framed itself as an infrastructure provider, offering graphics processing units for data centers to help nations use AI for their economies and populations. Huang recently made a similar trip to the Middle East, where Nvidia intends to supply its latest chips for major data center projects in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

“Every industrial revolution begins with infrastructure. AI is the essential infrastructure of our time, just as electricity and the internet once were,” Huang said in a press release on Wednesday.

In another presentation, Huang added, “Europe has now awakened to the importance of these AI factories, the importance of this AI infrastructure.” Nvidia uses the term “AI factories” to describe large data centers loaded with its GPUs.

He predicted that AI computing capacity in Europe will increase tenfold over the next two years.

The push into Europe is part of Nvidia’s broader effort to deepen its global presence and embed its technology in national AI plans, a strategy that has gained urgency after U.S. export limits on its top chips cut revenue from China.

To advance these goals, Nvidia said it is partnering with national governments, regional cloud and telecommunications firms, and technology centers across Europe.

One major deal is with French startup Mistral, which will build an “AI cloud” powered by 18,000 Nvidia Grace Blackwell chips. The platform will enable businesses to develop and run AI applications using Mistral’s own models.

Nvidia also outlined upcoming infrastructure work in Italy and Armenia, though it offered few details. Telecommunications operators Orange and Telefónica will collaborate with the chip maker on deploying AI applications and large language models as part of the new agreements.

In Germany, the company plans to create an “industrial cloud” equipped with 10,000 GPUs, tailored to serve European manufacturers with specialized AI services. A key theme in Europe is “sovereign AI,” the idea that servers handling data for users in the European Union should be located within the region rather than overseas.

Nvidia also announced plans to open “tech centers” in countries including the UK, France, Spain and Germany. These centers will focus on advanced research, workforce training, and speeding up scientific discoveries.

Nvidia expanded its DGX Cloud Lepton offering, a marketplace that lets developers tap into GPUs around the world. The service now includes more cloud providers and integrates with the AI model repository Hugging Face.

Nvidia is expanding AI software

Beyond hardware, Nvidia has been boosting its software line to stay at the forefront of AI development.

Last year, it launched Nvidia NIM, a pre-configured AI model package designed for rapid deployment. On Wednesday, the company said that any large language model available on Hugging Face can now be deployed through its NIM service. This move allows developers to skip building their own models and instead use Nvidia’s platform to access a wide range of options.

On Wednesday, German startup DeepL said it is using one of Nvidia’s newest systems to power its language translation services. With this upgrade, DeepL claims it can now translate the entire internet in just 18 days. This is a major improvement from the 194 days it previously needed.

DeepL, which has built its own AI models, is a direct competitor to services like Google Translate.

By linking its powerful GPUs to a growing suite of software tools, Nvidia aims to hold its lead in artificial intelligence and strengthen its position against rivals. The Huang-led firm said the move to offer both hardware and software together gives customers a smoother path to deploy AI, reducing the need to source components from multiple suppliers.

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