SoftBank Group Corp. plans to invest up to €75 billion [1] to build artificial intelligence data center capacity across France.
The investment aims to establish France as a primary European hub for AI infrastructure to meet the global surge in compute demand [2, 3].
According to the plan, the Japanese technology holding company will deploy the funds over the next five years [7]. The total project target is to reach an AI data center capacity of up to five GW [3].
The first phase of the project focuses on Northern France and other sites across the country [1, 2]. This initial stage involves an investment of €45 billion [6] to create 3.1 GW of capacity [4]. This phase will include the construction of three data centers [5].
SoftBank expects the first phase of the infrastructure to be completed by 2031 [6]. The company intends to use these facilities to support the growing requirements of AI models and cloud services.
While some reports cited the investment in U.S. dollars, other sources specify the amount as €75 billion, which is approximately $87 billion [1].
“SoftBank plans to invest up to €75 billion to build AI-focused data center capacity.”
This massive capital injection signals a strategic shift toward physical AI infrastructure in Europe. By establishing five GW of capacity, SoftBank is betting on France's energy grid and regulatory environment to support the high power demands of generative AI, potentially reducing European reliance on U.S.-based cloud providers.
