Microsoft and Google are making big investments in European AI infrastructure, with the Seattle-based software giant spending more than $10 billion to build a data hub in Portugal, and Alphabet investing $6.35 billion on new construction and expansion of an existing complex in Germany. The moves are the latest in U.S. tech’s push for a global AI footprint. Microsoft is working with Nvidia, the UK startup Nscale and data center building specialist Start Campus. Google is bringing green initiatives to its project in Deutschland, which it estimates will bring 9,000 jobs and nearly $1.2 billion to German GDP.

“Tech giants have pledged billions of dollars to beef up data centers, cloud services and AI infrastructure in Europe since OpenAI’s release of ChatGPT to the public in late 2022 ushered in a spending frenzy,” reports The Wall Street Journal, pointing out that Nvidia and Deutsche Telekom are working “to build one of Europe’s largest AI factories in Germany” in a $1.1 billion partnership, with Amazon committing more than $1.6 billion to increase its cloud computing presence in the Netherlands over the next three years.

The UK is another data center hotspot, with Microsoft in September announcing it will spend $30 billion on AI infrastructure there through 2028 and Google planning to invest about $6.8 billion in UK AI, research and engineering over the next two years.

SiliconANGLE cites a McKinsey report on the State of AI in 2025 “estimating that data centers worldwide need around $6.7 trillion by 2030 to keep up with the pace and growing compute power needed for the technology.”

Microsoft President and Vice Chair Brad Smith announced the company’s build in Portugal’s port city Sines at the annual Web Summit in Lisbon, saying it will use 12,600 Nvidia GB300 GPUs for what SiliconANGLE suggests “is one of the largest AI investments on the continent.”

Bloomberg describes Sines as a strategic tech investment hub, noting that “the area hosts undersea cables linking Europe to Brazil and Africa, with Google soon adding a line to South Carolina.”

In a news post, Google detailed plans for “a new data center in Dietzenbach, continued investments in the existing Hanau data center campus and expanded office locations in Berlin, Frankfurt and Munich,” which include the company’s “first heat recovery project in Germany and local skilling and wetland protection initiatives.”

“While Europe continues to draw spending pledges, AI investments in the continent have been tiny compared to the hundreds of billions of dollars committed in the U.S.,” writes WSJ, noting OpenAI and its backers have committed to an initial $100 billion in stateside data center spending.