SoftBank invests €75B in French AI data centers for 5GW capacity

SoftBank Group today unveiled plans to invest up to €75 billion (approximately $87 billion) to expand data center capacity in France, targeting up to 5 gigawatts of new infrastructure. The first phase will construct facilities in Dunkirk (Loon-Plage), Bosquel, and Bouchain, delivering 3.1 gigawatts to the Hauts-de-France region by 2031. SoftBank, which is both an investor in and customer of OpenAI, described this as its largest AI infrastructure investment in Europe. French economic minister Roland Lescure hailed the move as 'a testament to President Macron's ambition to position France as a leading destination all along the AI value chain,' signaling strong government backing for large-scale data center projects.

This announcement comes as opposition to data center construction heats up in the United States over environmental concerns, grid strain, and rising utility prices. Nevertheless, SoftBank also plans a separate data center in Ohio, powered by a new 9.2-gigawatt natural gas plant. The French investment underscores SoftBank's aggressive push to secure AI compute capacity globally, leveraging favorable European policies and renewable energy targets. With France already home to several major AI players and cloud regions, this €75B bet could reshape the continent's AI infrastructure landscape, providing the raw compute needed to train and deploy next-generation models at scale.