A European AI layer does not need to be a European ChatGPT. It needs to be buyable: a model you can run, compute under European law, terms you can exit, a price that does not punish the choice. The Commission's gigafactory tender closes on 12 November.
The useful question about those machines is not the GPU count but whether inference capacity will be reserved, priced and contractable under EU law. Training capacity and serving capacity are different products with different economics. A hospital trust needs to run models, not build them, and the serving half has to be written into the tender rather than assumed.
AltLibreWhat a Credible European AI Layer Would Take - AltLibreEurope is tendering AI gigafactories, but credible means buyable. Four requirements: contractable compute, open weights, the middle layer, and buyers.