LISBON, Nov 11 (Reuters) - Microsoft ( MSFT ) plans to

invest $10 billion in artificial intelligence infrastructure at

a data centre in Portugal's port city of Sines over the next few

years, marking one of the largest AI investment projects in

Europe, it said on Tuesday.

The technology giant will work in partnership with

developers Start Campus, AI infrastructure platform Nscale and

chipmaker NVIDIA ( NVDA ) to deploy 12,600 next-generation NVIDIA

Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) in Sines, 150 km (93 miles)

south of Lisbon.

Start Campus, a venture between U.S. investment fund

Davidson Kempner and Britain's Pioneer Point Partners, in April

announced a plan to invest 8.5 billion euros ($9.9 billion) by

2030 in a data centre hub to serve growing demand from major

tech and AI companies.

One of the planned six buildings is already in operation.

"By strengthening the national AI infrastructure through

collaboration with Nscale, NVIDIA ( NVDA ), and Start Campus, we are

helping to position Portugal as a benchmark for the responsible

and scalable development of AI in Europe," Microsoft's ( MSFT ) Vice

Chair and President Brad Smith said.

Portugal has large investment projects lined up for Sines to

produce green energy to power energy-intensive data centres.

Portugal's Atlantic coastline positions it as a prime hub for

subsea cables connecting Europe, Africa and the Americas and

forming the backbone of the World Wide Web.

Investments in data centres, which help provide computing

power for AI, have surged since OpenAI launched ChatGPT in 2022,

as companies across sectors increasingly shift their operations

to the cloud and integrate AI into their businesses.

($1 = 0.8575 euros)