Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang opened VivaTech 2026 in Paris on Tuesday with a keynote address outlining his vision for a continent-wide network of AI factories powered by Blackwell computing infrastructure, calling Europe a central pillar of the next phase of artificial intelligence deployment.

Speaking at what is Europe’s largest technology and startup conference, Huang announced commitments from more than 20 European governments and enterprises to build AI factories using Nvidia’s latest Blackwell GPU clusters. The combined computing capacity from committed projects represents over 3,000 exaflops of AI processing power, a figure Huang described as sufficient to train and run the next generation of sovereign AI models without reliance on American cloud infrastructure.

The centrepiece announcement was a partnership with Mistral AI, the French startup that has positioned itself as Europe’s leading foundation model provider. Mistral and Nvidia will co-develop a sovereign cloud offering, allowing European companies and governments to run large language model workloads inside European data centres, meeting data residency and privacy requirements that have long complicated the use of US-based AI services on the continent.

Huang framed the European AI factory initiative as distinct from general cloud computing. The factories are purpose-built facilities optimised specifically for training and inference at scale, combining Blackwell GPU racks with high-speed networking and dedicated cooling systems. He said the first factories are already operational in several countries, with the network expected to reach full capacity by mid-2027.

French President Emmanuel Macron, who has made attracting technology investment a signature part of his economic agenda, was present at the VivaTech opening. France has committed significant government resources to AI infrastructure, and the Nvidia partnership reinforces Paris’s ambition to become the European capital of AI.

The keynote also touched on humanoid robotics, autonomous vehicles, and the role of AI in pharmaceutical research — sectors where Huang argued Nvidia’s computing platforms provide capabilities that were impossible five years ago.

VivaTech continues through Thursday, with thousands of startups, investors, and corporate delegates from across Europe and beyond in attendance. The event draws particular attention from French and German technology ecosystems and has grown into a significant counterpart to US events like CES and AWS re:Invent.

Nvidia’s stock rose modestly following the keynote as investors noted the scale of the European AI factory commitments.