Overview
- President Emmanuel Macron opened the Choose France summit on Monday by announcing a record €93 billion of investment commitments tied to 71 projects that the Élysée says will create over 15,000 jobs.
- SoftBank pledged up to €75 billion for AI infrastructure in France, with €45 billion committed by 2031 for projects in the Hauts‑de‑France, a Schneider Electric partnership, planned sites in Dunkerque, Le Bosquel and Bouchain, and an initial data‑centre phase of about 3 gigawatts rising toward roughly 5 gigawatts.
- Other major confirmations at the summit include multi‑billion plans from Brookfield, an Ardian/Verne digital‑infrastructure campus, Foxconn’s €120 million AI hardware line in Angers, and new Amazon logistics and cloud investments.
- All announcements are formal commitments or framework deals that now face practical tests: site permits, local planning, high‑voltage grid upgrades, factory and supply‑chain scaling, and hiring skilled workers will determine how fast or fully projects are built.
- Choose France has previously announced large packages (about €87 billion across earlier editions), and the government is pitching France’s abundant low‑carbon electricity and ready sites to attract AI compute while economists and unions warn that announced sums are conditional and conversion to finished projects is not guaranteed.