President Emmanuel Macron said that he was expecting foreign investment amounting to 93 billion euros ($108 billion) at an international conference Monday, including in artificial intelligence and data centres.
Money already pledged as part of his annual “Choose France” meeting would surpass the combined 87 billion euros raised over the past eight years, he said.
“This edition of Choose France alone will make it possible to crystallise a record amount of 93 billion euros in confirmed investments, for more than 15,000 jobs. It is obviously by far a record edition, and it is historic,” Macron said.
This year’s pledges include 45 billion euros from Japanese tech investor SoftBank, Macron said. Its founder, Masayoshi Son, said over the weekend that the money would be spent by 2031 on data centres in northern France.
They would also be spent on “artificial intelligence, on data centres” as well as semiconductors, critical minerals, tractors and trucks, steel and healthcare, the president said.
Macron said these projects would make it possible “to make France by far the leading country hosting data centres” and “computing capacity in Europe”, as well as a “forward base for the production of AI robots, and for industrialisation through AI”.
“We are clearly bridging the gap we had in computing capacities in Europe,” compared with the United States and China, he added.
SoftBank’s Son said France’s nuclear-powered electricity was a key factor in choosing France.
Now we can “convert electricity as a raw material into more high-value intelligence,” he added, including for export.
“We have the momentum which we can make France the centre of Europe,” Son added.
AFP
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