Nvidia CEO encourages Europe's lagging AI sector and offers tools to
accelerate data center buildout
[October 22, 2026] By
DAVID McHUGH
BERLIN (AP) — Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang urged players in Europe's lagging
artificial intelligence industry to get going and touted a modular
system to quickly build AI data centers with the massive computing
capacity the continent's developers need but currently lack.
In an upbeat speech Wednesday at a company conference for developers and
investors in Berlin, Huang also laid out tools to keep AI applications
from running amok by confining them in a digital “sandbox.”
“Europe's AI economy is starting, and it's accelerating, and it's great
to see,” Huang, striding across the stage in his trademark leather
jacket and sneakers, said in front of some 3,000 developers, analysts
and journalists at Berlin's Tempodrom auditorium.
Huang, whose company designs the computer chips and software used by AI
developers like Anthropic and OpenAI, frequently name-checked European
partner companies such as Siemens, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen's Audi.
“Europe is building its AI economy" as the technology moves from
language models to so-called physical AI in manufacturing, Huang said.
“Every company in the future will be an AI company.”
Mercedes-Benz CEO Ola Kallenius, whose company is working on developing
autonomous driving technology with Nvidia, said that the technology
could reduce the number of auto fatalities caused by human error “down
to zero... we will have safer streets once we have full autonomy.”
Huang said Nvidia's design for the Vera Rubin DSK Pod, a ready-made
modular computing center made by partners and delivered in a shipping
container-like box, can reduce the time needed to set up an AI data
center at a prepared site from months to days. The pod “will change the
way people build AI centers,” Huang told attendees of the Nvidia GTC
conference.
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Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang stands near a Mercedes car as he delivers
his keynote on the company's GTC event in Berlin, Germany,
Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
 He said Nvidia had invested $10
billion in European startups and partners in the past year.
Building out data centers is key for Europe, which has only about 5%
of the world's AI computing capacity, compared to 75% in the U.S.
Lack of the massive computing power, or “compute” in digital jargon,
needed to train AI applications is a key obstacle for European
developers.
“The big bottleneck is compute,” said Jeannette zu Fürstenberg,
president and managing director of General Catalyst, ahead of the
speech. General Catalyst invests in AI companies.
Huang was briefly interrupted by protesters who stood up with a
banner urging him to “clean up" his business. Huang promised “to
talk to you later” and urged security to avoid rough handling as
they removed the protesters.
Huang also addressed concerns about safety by talking about the
company's OpenShell open-source software designed to exert external
control over what AI applications are doing and block them if they
violate company policy.
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