Bombay Durpun - SoftBank to spend $87.5bn on AI centres in France: Son

"This will be the largest investment in Europe in infrastructure related to artificial intelligence: 75 billion euros in total," Son told La Tribune Dimanche weekly ahead of a French investment conference hosted by President Emmanuel Macron.

He said it included 45 billion euros to be spent by 2031 on data centres in the Hauts-de-France region of northern France.

French electrics giant Schneider will be a partner in the huge project, its chief executive Olivier Blum told AFP.

"This is a significant partnership, a major project, the largest ever undertaken in France" in the sector, said Blum.

"Up to now, there is roughly 1.5 gigawatts of installed data centre capacity in France at the end of 2025, and what's being announced now is that there will be an initial phase of 3.0 gigawatts followed by a second phase that could reach up to 5.0," he added.

The announcement is a major boost to Macron's efforts to attract hi-tech industries to France, in competition with other European nations.

- Energy exporter -

Macron is to host an international investment conference at Versailles palace from Monday.

Son, 68, said his decision was made after meeting Macron during a visit to Tokyo in April and that France's status as an energy exporter had played a key role. Data centres are huge consumers of energy.

"The fact that the country is an energy producer and exporter is absolutely crucial for infrastructure investments in artificial intelligence, especially for data centres," said Son, whose company has an 11-percent stake in the OpenAI giant that runs the ChatGPT chatbot.

The Japanese tycoon said he had also been impressed by Macron's "strong personal commitment to ensuring France's economic success, even though our investments have so far been concentrated primarily in the United States, and Japan and Asia".

Blum said that Schneider would take part in the design and supply of all the equipment with a factory to be built at the channel port of Dunkirk.

The first three data centres would be at Dunkirk and near the northern cities of Cambrai and Amiens, he added.

France says it has 35 venues ready to provide enough energy and other infrastructure for data centres. Macron has repeatedly said that Europe must not let the United States and China take an insurmountable lead in AI.

Son said that "catching up with the United States, currently the global centre of gravity for innovation, is a challenge for most other countries".

Europe must, he added in the interview with Tribune, "find the right path" to reach a "balance" between innovation and regulation.

P.Raval--BD