Deutsche Telekom, SAP, Ionos and retailer Schwarz have formed a consortium to seek European Union backing for an AI data processing center in Germany.

The group is vying to build one of five planned “AI gigafactories” under the European Commission’s $20 billion initiative aimed at reducing reliance on U.S. and Chinese infrastructure and advancing the EU’s AI capabilities.

“The window of opportunity to create our own independent infrastructure for this is now,” said Christine Knackfuss-Nicolic, CTO of Deutsche Telekom’s T-Systems division, stressing the urgency and shared momentum within Europe to establish sovereign AI capacity.

German daily Handelsblatt reported that the consortium is actively engaging with the EU and German government, with a June 20 deadline set for initial expressions of interest. Ionos confirmed its participation in discussions, calling the EU push “an important step towards greater digital sovereignty”, though it noted that several details remain unresolved.

Germany’s recently formed coalition government has already pledged to secure one of the EU-backed centers for the country.