Why sovereign AI infrastructure is driving global adoption of generative AI
From self-driving cars to AI agents and transformative drug discovery, humanity is entering a fourth industrial revolution – one powered by artificial intelligence.
Nations around the world have taken notice. Harnessing generative AI promises enormous socio-economic, cultural and geopolitical benefits, but modernizing a government’s ability to enable and enhance its AI capabilities requires creating a nationwide accelerated IT infrastructure at a level that is as fundamental and crucial as energy and water networks. Countries that fail to invest in sovereign AI not only risk falling behind their more AI-literate counterparts, but also resign themselves to dependence on other countries for their crucial 21st century resources.
Vice President of Worldwide AI Initiatives at NVIDIA
What is an AI factory?
While the first industrial revolution brought us coal-fired factories to make work more efficient and the telegraph to enable broader communications, this latest revolution is spurred by the most computationally demanding task humanity has ever faced: generative AI. Generative AI allows users to quickly create new content from a variety of inputs, such as text or images. Due to the massive amounts of data this entails, our current computing infrastructure simply won’t be enough. European countries must prioritize creating a sovereign AI infrastructure to meet demand. In practice, this means creating AI factories.
At a basic level, an AI factory is where data comes in and intelligence comes out. It is an entirely new generation of data centers that use a full-stack accelerated computing platform to perform the most intensive computing tasks. Just as heavy machinery is needed to refine raw materials into more useful resources, significant computing power is needed to convert vast amounts of raw data into intelligence. The AI factory will become the foundation of modern economies around the world.
Currently, the world’s most powerful supercomputers are clustered, with the majority of AI computing power residing in prestigious universities, research labs, and a handful of companies. This landscape prevents many countries from creating generative AI that uses valuable local data to understand the local language and its nuances. The Future of Compute Review, commissioned by the British government, found that to project its global power as a leader in science and technology, Britain must safeguard its own sovereign computing capabilities.
Working with national champions
The sovereign AI race is already underway. Japan, India and Singapore have already announced plans to build next-generation AI factories. Although these countries have a head start, the race is far from over. Real progress is already starting to be made in Europe, as the European Commission recently expressed support for a network of AI factories.
However, governments cannot achieve this new industrial revolution alone. Developing generative AI at this scale will require vast amounts of material wealth and technical skills, so collaboration with the private sector will be critical to success. Each country already has its own strong domestic sector, filled with local technology champions. Making the most of their expertise and capabilities is the first step to success.
The telecommunications industry is one such sector that is well positioned to support generative AI infrastructure efforts by developing into AI factories. Leading telecom operators, such as Orange in France or BT and EE in the UK, are trusted service providers with large customer bases in the region. The demands of the telecom sector have prepared these companies to effectively support the generative AI infrastructure revolution. Telcos are already accustomed to intensive infrastructure investment and replacement cycles, such as the recent rollout of 4G and 5G solutions. Additionally, they have access to secure, high-performance distributed data centers near major metropolitan areas, which helps combat latency issues.
If Europe wants to be at the wheel of the latest industrial revolution, rather than just a passenger, European countries must make investing in AI infrastructure an absolute priority.
A new understanding of sovereignty
Although we are in the midst of a generative AI boom and interest continues to grow, development and deployment tools remain limited in terms of their accessibility. Most, if not all, of the most popular AI tools are primarily available in the English language. In a geographical area as culturally and linguistically diverse as Europe, AI tools need to be accessible to everyone – not just those who happen to speak English. Achieving this means using local data, implementing local languages and, most importantly, bringing in the translation capabilities to do this within your own borders.
Changing the perception of sovereignty to include computing power is no easy feat and is certainly not feasible without action. The shift to sovereign data centers preserves cultures and native languages in AI tools and ensures that GenAI applications can function accurately within their specific context. But it will take generational investment and continued support. The AI infrastructure on which tomorrow’s economies will be built simply doesn’t exist yet, and those who start building first will likely have the most to gain.
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