SoftBank Group has announced its largest European AI infrastructure investment to date: up to €75 billion ($87 billion) to develop 5 gigawatts of AI data center capacity across France. The commitment was revealed during the 2026 Choose France summit hosted by President Emmanuel Macron on May 30-31.
The initial phase involves €45 billion to establish 3.1 GW of AI data center capacity in the Hauts-de-France region by 2031, with facilities planned in Dunkirk (Loon-Plage), Bosquel, and Bouchain. SoftBank will partner with its subsidiary SB Energy alongside French companies Schneider Electric and EDF on the project. The investment aims to position France as a hub for European AI infrastructure and bolster technological sovereignty on the continent.
Source
Reported by SoftBank Group, Quartz, TechRadar, and Tom’s Hardware.
Commentary
$87 billion to build data centers in one country is a staggering figure, even by 2026 standards. To put it in perspective, that’s more than the entire GDP of most European nations. SoftBank is essentially betting that the bottleneck for AI isn’t algorithms — it’s electricity and compute real estate. And they might be right.
The geopolitical angle is just as interesting. France has been aggressively courting AI investment under Macron, and this deal gives Europe a credible path to AI infrastructure independence from the US and Asia. Whether all €75 billion materializes remains to be seen — SoftBank’s investment commitments have historically been ambitious — but even the firm €45 billion first phase would make Hauts-de-France one of the densest AI compute regions on the planet.