SOFTBANK DROPS €75 BILLION ON FRANCE TO BUILD THE BIGGEST AI DATA CENTER IN EUROPE Japan’s SoftBank Group has committed up to €75 billion to build five gigawatts of artificial intelligence data center capacity across France, a deal that would give the country the largest AI infrastructure footprint in Europe and hand Paris a weapon in its direct competition with Silicon Valley. The announcement lands as France is already running a national artificial intelligence strategy worth more than €109 billion, part of the broader France 2030 investment plan. SoftBank’s commitment is the largest single foreign technology investment in French history. The scale of the bet reflects how completely the AI infrastructure race has shifted the geography of global capital. A year ago France was a regulatory cautionary tale, warning labs about compliance obligations and consumer risk. Today it is writing nine-figure checks to anyone who will build compute on its soil. NVIDIA has separately committed to building out France’s sovereign AI infrastructure. President Macron’s administration has positioned VivaTech, the annual Paris technology conference scheduled for June 17, as the stage where Europe’s answer to Silicon Valley will be formally declared. SoftBank’s entry transforms that positioning from aspiration to argument. No sites have been publicly disclosed for the data centers, and construction timelines have not been announced, but the money is reportedly committed and the agreements are signed. Keywords: SoftBank France AI, European AI data centers, France AI investment, sovereign AI infrastructure