“We aim to mobilise a total of 200 billion euros for AI investments in Europe,” the European Commission president told a Paris AI summit, saying the EU would contribute 50 billion euros with the rest pledged by “providers, investors and industry.”

Europe faces an uphill challenge as the United States and China charge ahead in the AI field, but von der Leyen insisted “the AI race is far from over”.

“We want to accelerate innovation,” she told the gathering of leaders and tech executives, declaring that “global leadership is still up for grabs”.

The EU investment push would include 20 billion euros to finance four AI gigafactories, “to allow open, collaborative development of the most complex AI models,” a commission statement said.

The initial EU funding will be drawn from existing programmes with a digital component.

Von der Leyen said the European funds would “top up” pledges announced Monday by a group of more than 60 European companies such as Airbus, Volkswagen and Mistral AI.

The firms said they aimed to stimulate the emergence of new companies, with 150 billion euros “earmarked” by international investors for AI-related opportunities in Europe over five years as part of the “EU AI Champions Initiative”.

Von der Leyen also announced that the EU would be putting its public supercomputers “at the service of our best startups and scientists.”

“We want AI to be a force for good,” she said. “AI needs competition, but AI also needs collaboration.”

The EU chief took the stage in Paris immediately after US Vice President JD Vance who took aim at the bloc in warning that “excessive regulation” could kill the emerging AI sector.

“AI needs the confidence of people and has to be safe,” von der Leyen said, in defending the bloc’s landmark AI Act regulating the technology — which includes curbs on uses deemed too dangerous.

“Safety is in the interest of business,” said the EU chief, while also acknowledging that “we have to make it easier, we have to cut red tape”.