PARIS, May 30: Japan’s SoftBank Group will invest 45 billion euros over the next five years to build out artificial intelligence infrastructure in France, the company announced on Saturday.
SoftBank said the investment, said to be the largest of its kind in Europe to date, will take place in the northern Hauts-de-France region and will provide 3.1 gigawatts of capacity.
The investment plan will be formally announced on Monday at the annual business conference “Choose France”.
French engineering firm Schneider Electric said it will be one of the main partners in the project and will equip the site with the modules, without disclosing financial details.
Three locations are expected to be operational by 2031, including one in Dunkirk.
According to SoftBank, it plans to add more locations across France in the future, with a total investment amount of 75 billion euros.
“The fact that this country is a producer and exporter of energy is absolutely crucial for investment in AI infrastructure,” SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son told La Tribune du Dimanche newspaper.
State-owned nuclear energy giant EDF is also part of the deal, which will hand over one of its former power plants to SoftBank and convert the site into a data center.
France’s involvement will further accelerate SoftBank’s global AI infrastructure investment. Its AI investments include more than $30 billion invested to date in OpenAI, where it owns approximately 11% of the stock.
France has used the Choose France summit to appeal to foreign investors since it was launched by President Emmanuel Macron in 2018.
(Reporting by Tassilo Hummel; Editing by Tomasz Janowski and Franklin Paul)
