Countries / Europe
Portugal
Portugal has a new national AI agenda, the Deucalion supercomputer and the Sines campus, a 1.2 GW AI data centre site that is already operating its first phase.
The National AI Agenda (ANIA), approved by Council of Ministers Resolution 2/2026, has 32 initiatives and includes a national AI Gigafactory and expansion of supercomputing such as Deucalion. The EU AI Act applies directly, and the communications regulator ANACOM consulted in 2026 on guidance for the AI Act's prohibited practices. At Sines, Start Campus is planning a 1.2 GW site, and an analyst estimate puts 33 MW of IT power already operating with chips owned by Nscale and used by Microsoft. For someone seeking compute, Deucalion offers public capacity and Sines is the main route to large private capacity.
AI policy and activity
ANIA forms part of Action No. 20 of the National Digital Strategy 2030 action plan for 2026 to 2027 and is aligned with the EU AI Continent Action Plan. Portugal is listed on EuroHPC's AI Factories page in the same group as Spain's factory; we did not confirm its precise status.
Power and grid
About 68% of Portuguese electricity consumption came from renewables in 2025, according to figures cited by EDP and Start Campus. EDP has a framework to supply Sines with new renewable build-out. Colliers counts over 2.6 GW of planned IT capacity nationally, but projects still depend on local grid connection and planning decisions.
Data centres and compute
| Site | Where | Status | Notes and source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Start Campus Sines Data Campus Start Campus | Sines | Operating | Epoch AI estimates 33 MW of IT power and about 32,000 H100-equivalents operating now, projected to 233 MW by Q3 2027, with the full site planned at 1.2 GW by 2030. The developer cites PUE 1.1 and sea-water cooling. (source) |
| Deucalion FCT, managed by CNCA | Guimaraes | Operating | EuroHPC lists 7.48 petaflops sustained across ARM, x86 and 33 NVIDIA A100 nodes. (source) |
| Merlin Edged Lisbon platform Merlin Edged | Lisbon region | Planned | Colliers data reported by trade press: up to 1,300 MW planned, 80 MW under construction for Q4 2027, positioned as a candidate EU AI gigafactory with the government. (source) |
Rules and programmes
| Instrument | Kind | Status | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| National Artificial Intelligence Agenda (ANIA) | Policy | In force | EU Digital Skills platform summary, updated July 2026. Launched January 2026 with four pillars and 32 initiatives, including a National AI Gigafactory and expanded advanced computing. |
| EU AI Act in Portugal: ANACOM and other supervisors | Law | In force | Law-firm guide. Portugal has no standalone AI code, has published 14 entities supervising fundamental-rights protection for high-risk AI, and ANACOM consulted in 2026 on draft guidance. |
Checked on 2 October 2026 and due for review by 1 January 2027. Many sources are trade press or law-firm summaries rather than official texts, and statuses such as reported or unconfirmed are shown as the source gives them. This is a summary, not legal advice. If something is wrong or out of date, tell us.