SoftBank Pledges €75 Billion to Build AI Infrastructure Across France by 2030

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SoftBank announced a €75 billion commitment to develop AI infrastructure in France, unveiled at President Macron's AI summit in Paris in June 2026. The four-year investment plan runs through 2030 and is divided across GPU data centers totalling 3.2 GW of capacity, a fiber and edge network covering 12 regions, and eight R&D facilities targeting 50,000 AI jobs. France was chosen over Germany and the Netherlands primarily due to its nuclear-powered electricity surplus, which gives it significantly lower energy costs, as well as its established AI regulatory sandbox under the EU AI Act. The French government offered subsidized land, expedited permits, and preferential tax treatment in exchange for priority access to compute capacity on French soil. The deal is part of SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son's broader strategy of building geographically distributed AI infrastructure globally, following similar large-scale commitments in the United States, Japan, and the UAE.

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ProgrammingDEV Community ·

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