Introduced by Andreas Munk Holm, this EUVC Live at GoWest series spotlights the thought leadership of policymakers, institutional investors, GPs, corporates, and public capital leaders around one defining question:
How does Europe mobilize its own capital to secure its technological future?
Across the sessions, one theme emerges repeatedly:
Europe does not lack talent.
It does not lack innovation.
It does not lack savings.
It lacks coordination.
In this episode, Moritz Jungman, Partner at First Energy Ventures, makes a contrarian point about the AI boom:
Europe does not fundamentally lack power generation.
It lacks grid readiness.
It lacks orchestration.
It lacks speed.
AI is not just software.
It is infrastructure.
Training foundation models.
Running inference at scale.
Powering hyperscale data centers.
All require persistent, high-density electricity access.
And Europe’s bottleneck is not megawatts on paper.
It is access in practice.
Grid interconnection delays.
Permitting timelines.
Transmission constraints.
Weak cross-border coordination.
In some regions, companies wait years for power despite the capacity existing in the system.
This is why Moritz Jungman argues the real opportunity is not simply building more generation.
It is upgrading the layer that makes electricity deployable:
Grid modernization.
Storage and flexibility.
Orchestration software.
Smarter allocation mechanisms.
Because in the AI era, sovereignty will not follow compute.
It will follow energy.
And the question is no longer whether Europe can build AI.
It is whether Europe can connect it.
The Scale of the Challenge
AI infrastructure is radically more energy-intensive than previous digital waves.
Training large foundation models.
Running inference at scale.
Powering hyperscale data centers.
All require persistent, high-density electricity access.
A few numbers frame the debate:
~1,000 GW of installed capacity across Europe
~50% renewable share, among the highest globally
Data center demand potentially reaching 200 TWh by 2030
Increasing geographic concentration of AI compute clusters
On paper, Europe is not energy-poor.
In practice, access to power is slow, fragmented, and bureaucratically constrained.
The Real Bottleneck: Grid & Orchestration
The core constraint is not generation. It is infrastructure coordination.
Specifically:
Grid interconnection delays
Permitting timelines
Limited transmission expansion
Weak cross-border energy coordination
Rigid allocation mechanisms
In several regions, companies wait years for grid access despite the theoretical capacity existing within the system.
At the same time, deindustrialization has freed up significant load capacity in parts of Europe. Heavy industry closures have reduced baseline demand. But capacity does not automatically flow to AI infrastructure.
It requires:
Planning
Regulatory flexibility
Capital alignment
This is where orchestration becomes critical.
The Investment Opportunity
If AI is the new industrial revolution, energy infrastructure is its enabling layer.
The opportunity is less about adding raw megawatts and more about upgrading the system that manages them.
Key investment themes include:
Grid modernization
Digitization
Smart balancing
Cross-border flow optimization
Energy orchestration software
Real-time load management
Predictive balancing
AI-driven grid optimization
Storage and batteries
Short-term flexibility
Long-duration resilience
Flexible demand systems
Load shifting
Co-location strategies
Industrial demand response
Faster permitting and smarter allocation
The winners of the AI cycle may not just be model builders.
They may be the infrastructure players who make scalable energy access possible.
Sovereignty in the AI Era
Energy sovereignty in the AI age is not only about renewables or independence from imported fossil fuels.
It is about:
Speed of deployment
Capital allocation efficiency
Regulatory coordination
Infrastructure resilience
Strategic compute placement
If AI clusters migrate to regions with faster grid access and cheaper electricity, sovereignty follows energy.
Not the other way around.
Europe’s structural advantages include:
High renewable penetration
Strong engineering talent
A large integrated market can be coordinated properly
Its disadvantage is fragmentation and slow execution.
The Strategic Question
The AI boom will not wait for permitting cycles.
The question is whether Europe can:
Align policy with private capital
Modernize grid infrastructure at scale
Coordinate across member states
Convert theoretical capacity into deployable power
If it can, Europe does not just participate in the AI era.
It competes on sovereign terms.
If it cannot compute, the economic value attached to AI will concentrate elsewhere.
Energy is no longer a utility debate.
It is an industrial policy.
