AI-BOOST meets AI factories: The engine behind Europe’s AI-Continent strategy

As the global artificial intelligence (AI) race intensifies, Europe is deploying an ambitious strategy to assert leadership: the AI-Continent Action Plan. At its core, this initiative is a continent-wide industrial policy designed to infuse AI across strategic sectors—such as manufacturing, mobility, energy, and healthcare, thereby boosting Europe’s technological sovereignty, productivity, and competitiveness. Central to its implementation are the AI Factories, infrastructures combining high-performance computing (HPC), data resources, and expert support. Yet strategy alone is not enough.
Translating vision into real-world impact requires execution mechanisms, like the AI-BOOST project.

The AI-Continent plan as a blueprint for industrial AI

The AI-Continent plan sets out to transform Europe into a competitive and sovereign AI powerhouse. Rather than treating AI as a standalone field, the plan positions it as a general-purpose technology, a tool to accelerate innovation across every industrial ecosystem.
To overcome Europe’s current fragmentation and innovation bottlenecks, the plan deploys:

  • AI Factories and Giga Factories: Sovereign HPC nodes supporting large-scale data processing, model training, and experimentation.
  • Digital Innovation Hubs and Testing and Experimentation Facilities (TEFs): Empowering SMEs and startups with access to cutting-edge AI expertise, infrastructure, and real-world testbeds.
  • Cross-border collaborations: Mobilising synergies across Horizon Europe, Digital Europe, and the Recovery and Resilience Facility to pool investments, knowledge and capabilities.
  • Trustworthy AI principles: Embedding ethics, transparency and human-centric design as core requirements for deployment.

The aim is to enable mass adoption of AI, not just in digital-first firms but across SMEs and legacy industries, particularly through sector-specific support and infrastructure.

The centre role of AI factories

A flagship component of this strategy is the network of AI Factories—advanced infrastructures like Italy’s IT4LIA, coordinated by Cineca. Equipped with over 20,000 GPUs, AI-enhanced supercomputing systems, and vast data facilities, IT4LIA embodies the AI-Continent vision.

Beyond raw compute, IT4LIA offers:

  • Vertical services in agrifood, manufacturing, climate, and cybersecurity.
  • Horizontal support such as data preparation, model training, and inference.
  • Dedicated access for startups and SMEs through open calls and personalised guidance.
  • Training programmes and a learning platform to up-skill the European AI workforce.

This infrastructure acts as a launchpad for deploying trusted, large-scale AI systems across sectors that are central to Europe’s industrial strategy.

AI-BOOST and how to transform policies into impact

To activate this infrastructure and attract the best innovators, AI-BOOST enters the scene. Aligned with the AI-Continent plan, AI-BOOST is a challenge-driven programme designed to catalyze the development of state-of-the-art Generative AI (GenAI) solutions in strategic industrial domains.

In its upcoming competition, AI-BOOST will invite innovators—particularly startups, scaleups, and SMEs, to solve concrete industrial challenges using GenAI technologies. These challenges will target the same sectors prioritized by the AI-Continent plan: manufacturing, energy, mobility, healthcare, and more.

The synergy is deliberate as AI-BOOST defines high-value challenges to push the boundaries of industrial AI while AI Factories like IT4LIA offer the compute, data, and expertise to solve them. The collaboration ensures rapid development, testing, and deployment of GenAI models in critical sectors.

Moreover, AI-BOOST’s structure as an “AI Gate” facilitates streamlined access to AI factory services for competition participants. This includes:

   I. High-performance compute environments.
   II. Curated and trusted datasets.
   III. Expert guidance on optimisation, ethics, and impact.
   IV. Exposure to European-wide ecosystems and end-users.

As such, AI-BOOST is not only supporting project execution, it is shaping the very standards and practices that will define Europe’s AI future.

A model for European AI deployment

Together, the AI-Continent plan (and the AI Factories in particular), and AI-BOOST offer a powerful model of policy-through-action. Rather than relying solely on top-down strategy or bottom-up innovation, they integrate:

  • Pan-European coordination of infrastructure and funding.
  • Localised deployment in national ecosystems like IT4LIA.
  • Hands-on support for developers and SMEs.
  • Challenge-based engagement to ensure real-world industrial relevance.

This approach gives Europe a credible path forward, not just to remain competitive globally, but to define a distinctly ethical, inclusive, and sovereign model for AI deployment.

What comes next

The upcoming AI-BOOST competition represents a critical milestone in operationalising the AI-Continent vision. As GenAI continues to reshape industrial workflows, Europe is poised to lead—provided it can sustain its strategic alignment and scale impact across its industrial base.

Participation in AI-BOOST offers not only access to cutting-edge resources but also a seat at the table in designing Europe’s AI future. For companies, innovators, and industrial stakeholders alike, the message is clear: engage now, and help shape what comes next.

Join us

Ready to shape the future? Be part of Europe’s GenAI excellence story. Contact us at info@aiboost-project.eu or visit Sponsors – AI-BOOST to explore sponsorship opportunities.

Follow AI-BOOST today to take part in the shaping of the next level of European AI open competitions.

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