\n<\/p>\n
By Gianluca Lo Nostro and Agnieszka Olenska<\/p>\n
April 23 (Reuters) – Europe lacks the infrastructure needed to build up artificial intelligence data centres \u200cand is not investing enough to keep business from moving \u200cto China and the United States, the head of Nokia said on Thursday.<\/p>\n
While big technology \u200bcompanies are expected to pour hundreds of billions of dollars into scaling up AI-related infrastructure this year, Europe has been lagging behind due to regulatory and energy constraints.<\/p>\n
“The issue today is Europe doesn’t have the infrastructure,” Nokia \u200cCEO Justin Hotard told \u2060Reuters, while praising some of the European Union’s moves, such as the establishment of AI gigafactories.<\/p>\n
“But I think when \u2060you look at the relative pace of investment, I’m not sure it’s enough. And it’s not just about putting these factories in. You need connectivity. \u200bYou need \u200bdata centre capacity.”<\/p>\n
Data centres account for \u200b3% of the EU electricity \u200cdemand, but their consumption is expected to increase rapidly due to AI.<\/p>\n
Amazon said in February that long delays to get power grid connections were challenging the company’s data centre expansion in Europe.<\/p>\n
Nokia, a Finnish company once known for being the world’s largest phone manufacturer, is reaping gains from \u200cits push into AI. Its AI and \u200bcloud business now accounts for 8% of \u200bgroup sales, and the company \u200bexpects that addressable market to grow by 27% annually \u200cuntil 2028.<\/p>\n
“We’ve seen the movie before, \u200bright? If you don’t \u200bbuild that infrastructure, then ultimately the business and the developers will move to where that is,” said Hotard, who left Intel \u200bto join Nokia last \u200cyear.<\/p>\n
“The reality is right now, that’s in China and in the \u200bU.S. for the large part.”<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Agnieszka Olenska and Gianluca \u200bLo Nostro; Editing by Milla Nissi-Prussak)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n