French technology company Bull has agreed to work with České Radiokomunikace (CRA), a Czech telecom and digital infrastructure operator, on a sovereign artificial-intelligence offering intended to speed AI adoption in the Czech Republic and Central and Eastern Europe. Bull is also joining CRA’s AI Gigafactory consortium.
Bull said the collaboration combines CRA’s infrastructure experience with Bull’s AI systems, software and services, and strengthens the CRA-led consortium’s candidacy under the European AI Gigafactories programme. The Czech initiative is open to companies from a wider group of Central and Eastern European countries, in line with the Prague declaration.
Under that declaration, nine countries — the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Croatia, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Slovenia and Romania — have committed to closer coordination on European AI policy, computing infrastructure and the sharing of best practices.
CRA chief executive Miloš Mastník said the ambition is an ecosystem in the Czech Republic that links computing infrastructure with the development and practical use of AI. He said the memorandum with Bull opens cooperation on hardware and software, the two main parts of an AI gigafactory, so that international and Czech companies, public administrations and researchers can develop their own AI solutions there.
Bull chief executive Emmanuel Le Roux said joining the Czech consortium is a step in the company’s European AI strategy and deepens Czech–French cooperation, building on 200 DataSentics AI engineers in Prague and Brno. He said the aim is AI that is open, sustainable and sovereign, giving organisations greater control over their technology and data.