Sunday local time for the last time, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, announced a total of 109 billion euros in private investments in the AI ecosystem, or around $ 112 billion to current exchange rates. Paris presents the artificial intelligence action summit this week: the third international summit focused on AI after previous events in Bletchley Park in the United Kingdom, and Seoul, South Korea.
“I can tell you tonight, Europe is going to accelerate, France will accelerate,” Macron said in a television interview in France 2 and the first publication of India, replicating the 109 billion euros of investment in artificial intelligence that he said would deploy “In the coming years.”
He added that the money boat represents “exactly the equivalent for France of what the United States announced with Stargate, $ 500 billion, is the same proportion.” (With 68 million inhabitants, France has 5 times less people than the United States)
britcommerce began to count all the promises of investment of foreign and local players who have been arriving in recent days. With € 30b to € 50b from the United Arab Emirates (and MGX), € 20b from the Canadian investment firm Brookfield, € 10b of BPIFRANCE and € 3b from the French Telecommunications Company Iliad, we arrived at a total of even 83b of euros of € 83b ($ 85b) from Sunday.
Some companies have not yet announced their plans. During the interview, Macron mentioned Orange and Thales as other investors in the program.
Most investments will go to new AI -centered data centers. Therefore, the comparison with Stargate.
Macron also discussed the new French companies that have transferred their headquarters to the United States, such as Mistral, Owkin and Wandercraft. He said he believes that Europe is still competitive when it comes to new artificial intelligence companies, even suggesting that Depseek represents an opportunity to catch up.
“There was a career to climb. Everyone thought you always had to be bigger and stronger. What did Deepseek do with your open models? They have taken all the accessible innovations of the latest Operai model and adapted them to their own model, using a more frugal approach, ”he said. “Everyone will continue doing this. And that’s why you have to be in this race. “
Mistral Data Center Project
Arthur Mensch, co -founder and CEO of Mistral, also announced plans to invest billions in an AI group. The company based in Paris is possibly the only European company that works on base models that can compete with Alibaba, Anthrope, Deepseek, Meta, Openai and others models.
“We are going to do our part and invest several billion euros in a cluster, which will be established in Essonne, so that we can train even more efficient systems in just a few months,” Mesch said on French television TF1.
The announcement could be seen as another reaction to the Stargate project, the investment program of $ 500 billion directed by OpenAi and SoftBank, to build multiple data centers for AI in the United States.
As a reminder, the majority of France’s electricity production comes from nuclear power plants. France also produces more electricity than it uses. Monday, the French government announced that the country plans to promise a gigavatio of nuclear energy to the training of AI at the end of 2026.
As technological companies seek new locations for hungry data centers, ideally fed by carbon -free electricity, France could occur as an ideal place in Europe for these projects.
“In France, we have an extraordinary advantage. We produce part of the most decarbonized, controllable and safe electricity of the world, “Macron said, adding:” We have the safer and stable grid. And we export this low carbon electricity. “
According to the French president, the country exported 90TWH of electricity to neighboring countries in 2024. France now plans to use that head to attract foreign investments.