FRANCE is set to announce a total of 109 billion euros (S$152 billion) in investment in artificial intelligence (AI) projects in the country by companies, funds and other sources over the coming years, President Emmanuel Macron said on the eve of a two-day AI summit in Paris.
Speaking in an interview on France 2 TV on Sunday (Feb 9), Macron referenced a previously announced investment of between 30 billion euros and 50 billion euros on a new campus for data centres in France by a fund from the United Arab Emirates.
The French president also spoke of fresh money coming from US and Canadian funds. Brookfield Asset Management said on Sunday that it plans to invest 20 billion euros to develop data centres and AI infrastructure in France over the next five years. Macron also mentioned expected investments from French companies such as Iliad, Orange and Thales.
Macron likened the total spending – at a comparable scale – to Donald Trump’s Stargate announcement, a venture that includes some of the biggest US tech companies, and plans to spend US$500 billion on AI infrastructure over the next four years.
The remarks were made by Macron before the opening of the AI summit that is bringing together heads of state and government, including India’s Narendra Modi, and business leaders such as Guillaume Faury, the chief executive officer of Airbus.
Just as China’s weight in the AI scene was underscored by the emergence of its cost-efficient DeepSeek, Macron said France and Europe need to quickly play catch up if they want to stay in the game.
“The first battle for Europeans is to invest, invest, invest,” he said. “If we regulate before we innovate, we will not have any innovation and people will say, ‘We have great regulation in Europe, but we do not have a single player’.” BLOOMBERG
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