Deutsche Telekom is taking the biggest technological leap in its history: Together with the US chip company Nvidia, the Bonn-based group plans to build an AI factory in Munich – a data center cluster for artificial intelligence worth one billion euros.
By Jan Nintemann and Jochen Siegle; Photo: Mika Baumeister, Unsplash
With this initiative, Telekom is repositioning itself: no longer just as a telecommunications provider, but as an infrastructure player for the AI industry. In doing so, the company is entering a field that has so far been dominated by US giants such as Amazon (AWS), Microsoft (Azure) and Google Cloud.
According to Telekom CEO Timotheus Höttges, this dependence is to be broken by ensuring that the data from the Munich AI cloud remains entirely in Germany and that access and data processing are carried out exclusively by European specialists. The technology for this comes from a combination of Germany and the USA.
The construction of the factory will increase AI computing power in Germany by around 50 percent. In combination with Telekom’s network and the T Cloud, Telekom and Nvidia are creating an ecosystem for German and European companies that offers AI sovereignty.
Partnership for Greater Digital Sovereignty
According to Telekom, the new Industrial AI Cloud meets the high and diverse requirements of the industry, with a range of application scenarios. Several well-known partners and customers have already expressed their interest and declared their clear willingness to use the AI factory for their own purposes.
For example, this AI solution makes it possible to create digital 3D twins of real factories by integrating Nvidia Omniverse libraries for the virtual planning, simulation, testing and improvement of factory designs before they are built in reality.
TransformIT Europe as a New European Stage for Digital Sovereignty
These developments are taking place in a larger European context: TransformIT Europe in Brussels is the first international trade fair and conference to put digital sovereignty at the forefront as its central theme.
Leading companies, political decision-makers, technology providers, infrastructure pioneers and research institutions come together here to develop joint strategies for action for an independent, innovative Europe.
Vision: Independent, Innovative Europe
In addition to topics such as data spaces, European cloud infrastructures and resilient supply chains, smart city approaches and artificial intelligence play a key role.
The event will also host the 2nd edition of the AI conference “Future of European AI: Where Responsibility Meets Innovation” – organized with the participation of Google Developer Groups. It focuses in particular on responsible AI development, European regulatory frameworks and technology-driven innovation potential.
Another building block of the emerging European AI ecosystem
While Deutsche Telekom and Nvidia are laying the foundation for Europe’s industrial AI infrastructure with the Industrial AI Cloud, another no less ambitious component of the emerging European AI ecosystem is taking shape in parallel.
TransformIT Europe is working, as part of a project not yet publicly named, on a new generation of European AI frameworks for smart cities, mobility, and traffic planning. At its core, a novel cognitive architecture is being developed—one that enables systems to truly understand context, explain decisions causally and transparently, and continuously learn from real-world experience. This approach goes far beyond today’s large language models such as GPT or Gemini in its functional logic.
To accelerate this development, TransformIT Europe has invested in the seed phase of a European AI startup—a mid six-figure commitment that includes both financial participation and strategic collaboration.
Goal: Auditable and trustworthy AI “Made in Europe”
The goal is to develop a sovereign, auditable, and trustworthy AI “Made in Europe,” connecting public administrations, cities, and industries within a shared data and decision space—operated on European infrastructure and designed for regulatory transparency combined with the highest possible model intelligence.
The startup will present the first insights into this technology at the upcoming TransformIT Europe 2026. Industry insiders are already calling it a potential game changer for the European AI market. Further details are expected to be released in the coming months—there is reason to be excited.
See you in Brussels @ TransformIT Europe 2026
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