Tag: europe

SoftBank to spend €75 billion on data centers, manufacturing in France

The manufacturing and data centers will require next-gen worker skills. (Picture: Adobe)
The northern port of Dunkirk will become an advanced, automated AI manufacturing hub in the new plan — to support the buildout of 5 GW of compute power.

For the first phase, SoftBank is offering €45 billion to build 3.1 GW of capacity at various sites in the Hauts-de-France region by 2031, ramping up at a later date.

— SoftBank Group’s AI data centers will support growing demand for high-performance computing from AI companies, cloud providers, enterprises, public institutions and research organizations, they write in their release.

France was selected because of its wide manufacturing base, but another important factor is it advanced power grid, fueled by generous amounts of nuclear energy.

SoftBank will partner with Schneider Electric on the project, which will also create «thousands» of advanced, high-skilled jobs, requiring local universities, engineering schools, and training institutions to step up.

SoftBank is a major investor in OpenAI and is deeply involved in the Stargate program to build out compute capacity. This effort seems separate from both.

Read more: SoftBanks release, Reuters, and TechCrunch.

Mistral raises $830 million in debt to build data center just outside Paris

It’s a big investment for European AI, but significantly lower than what US AI labs are spending. (Picture: Mistral)
The new 44 MW data center will be powered by 13,800 Nvidia chips, and should be online by the second quarter of 2026.

The French AI lab is hoping to secure 200 megawatts of capacity by the end of 2027, Reuters reports.

— Scaling our infrastructure ​in Europe is ⁠critical to empower our customers and to ensure AI innovation and autonomy remain at the heart ​of Europe, says Mistral CEO Arthur Mensch.

The news comes hot on the heels of Mistral’s February startup of a €1.2 billion data center in Sweden, according to CNBC.

Mistral is the largest European AI lab, has contracts with the French armed forces, and has secured $3.1 billion in funding so far, TechCrunch writes.

Read more: Reuters, CNBC and TechCrunch.