The Canadian Investment Company Brookfield plans to invest 20 billion euros by 2030 in artificial intelligence projects in France (about $ 20.7 billion in current exchange rates), according to reports from La Tribune Dimanche confirmed by the news agency AFP. The majority of the amount will be used to build data centers that focus on AI.
This announcement is the last in a series of investment commitments, as heads of state and global technology leaders are planning to gather for the artificial intelligence summit in Paris starting Monday.
According to La Tribune Dimanche, about 15 billion euros in Brookfield’s investment will proceed with a huge Cambrai data center in northern France. This data center will have a capacity up to a gigawatt. The rest will be used for new infrastructure projects, including the construction of new electricity production capabilities.
On Friday, France and the United Arab Emirates announced an AI campus program along with a large investment of € 50 billion ($ 52 billion). Once again, most of the investment will go to a data center with a capacity of up to a gigawatt.
There are two reasons why these major investment projects are currently happening. First, on January 21, Openai, Softbank, MGX and other partners presented the Stargate program, an investment program of $ 500 billion to build multiple AI data centers in the United States.
While they are athletic How much every investor is really willing to commit to Stargate, this announcement – in conjunction with the recent Mario Draghi report In European competitiveness-it has been awakened as a wake-up call for many politics in Europe.
Secondly, the majority of France’s electricity production comes from nuclear power plants (about 65%) and renewable sources (about 25%). It also produces more electricity than needed. Technology companies are struggling to reduce carbon footprint and find sufficient electricity capacity so that they are increasingly trying in France as an attractive location for their hungry database.
Other commitments by local companies
Separately, BPIFrance, France’s Public Investment Bank, announced that it plans to invest up to 10 billion euros ($ 10.3 billion) in the AI ecosystem in France. This is not a Data Center project, as BPIFRANCE mostly wants to support more AI companies and become a limited partner in VC companies specializing in AI investments. BPIFRANCE is already a shareholder in Mistral, H and by the pool.
Finally, Iliad, the telecommunications company founded by French billionaire Xavier Niel, has 3 billion euros for AI investments ($ 3.1 billion) with the help of financial partners, such as Infravia. About 2.5 billion euros ($ 2.6 billion) will be used to build new data centers that focus on AI with “hundreds of capacity”.
ScaleA cloud computing company based in France is a subsidiary of Iliad. Thus, the new computing power will probably be available through Scaleway. Some European AI companies have already used Scaleway to train AI models, such as Mistral, H and Photoroom. (Interestingly, Xavier Niel also happens to be an investor in Mistral and H.)
If you add all these announcements, France could receive 83 billion euros ($ 85 billion) to investments related to AI in the coming years, mainly related to data centers and infrastructure projects. And there may be more to come to the AI Action Summit.
