European countries are racing to build data centres to support the fast-growing compute demands of AI. But as the technology's appetite for resources increases faster than the capacity to build infrastructure, many startups are tackling the challenge from another angle: making more with less. Investors from firms including Matterwave Ventures, Verve Ventures, and others have identified 19 startups to watch in this space.

These companies are focusing on optimizing AI models, reducing compute requirements, and improving energy efficiency across the stack. The selected startups span various approaches from model compression and efficient architectures to specialized hardware and software optimization tools. This trend reflects growing investor interest in sustainable AI infrastructure as compute costs and environmental concerns mount.