{"id":260033,"date":"2026-05-30T19:32:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T23:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/30\/softbank-to-build-up-ai-data-centres-in-france-with-major-investment\/"},"modified":"2026-05-31T01:50:34","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T05:50:34","slug":"softbank-to-build-up-ai-data-centres-in-france-with-major-investment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/30\/softbank-to-build-up-ai-data-centres-in-france-with-major-investment\/","title":{"rendered":"SoftBank to build up AI data centres in France with major investment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/whbl.com\/2026\/05\/30\/softbank-to-build-up-ai-data-centres-in-france-with-major-investment\/\">SoftBank to build up AI data centres in France with major investment<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/whbl.com\/2026\/05\/30\/softbank-to-build-up-ai-data-centres-in-france-with-major-investment\/\">https:\/\/whbl.com\/2026\/05\/30\/softbank-to-build-up-ai-data-centres-in-france-with-major-investment\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-05-30 19:32:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"whbl.com\">whbl.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>PARIS, May 30 (Reuters) \u2013 Japan\u2019s SoftBank Group will invest \u20ac45 billion over the next five years in a push to build up artificial intelligence \u200binfrastructure in France, the company announced on \u200cSaturday.<\/p>\n<p>SoftBank said the investment, described as the biggest of its kind so far in Europe, would be made in the northern Hauts-de-France region and deliver 3.1 GW of capacity.<\/p>\n<p>The investment plans \u200care \u200bdue to be formally announced \u2060on Monday at the \u2060annual Choose France business conference.<\/p>\n<p>French engineering company Schneider Electric  said it would be one of the project\u2019s key partners and equip the sites with its modules \u200bwithout disclosing financials.<\/p>\n<p>Three sites, including one in Dunkirk, are expected to come into operation by 2031.<\/p>\n<p>Additional \u2060sites spread across France are \u2060planned further down the road, SoftBank said, \u200bpushing the overall planned investment sum to \u20ac75 billion.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe fact \u200bthat the country is a producer and exporter \u200cof energy is absolutely decisive for investments in AI infrastructure,\u201d SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son told the paper La Tribune du Dimanche.<\/p>\n<p>State-owned nuclear energy giant EDF is \u2060also part of the deal, handing one of its former power plants over to SoftBank to transform the site into \u2060a data \u200ccentre.<\/p>\n<p>The French commitment adds to a \u2060global AI infrastructure spending spree by SoftBank. \u200bIts \u200cinvestments in AI also include over $30 billion \u200binvested in \u2060OpenAI so far, for about an 11% stake.<\/p>\n<p>France has been using the Choose France summit to court foreign investors since it was launched by President Emmanuel Macron in 2018.<\/p>\n<p>(reporting by Tassilo HummelEditing by Tomasz Janowski \u200band Franklin Paul)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/whbl.com\/2026\/05\/30\/softbank-to-build-up-ai-data-centres-in-france-with-major-investment\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SoftBank to build up AI data centres in France with major investment https:\/\/whbl.com\/2026\/05\/30\/softbank-to-build-up-ai-data-centres-in-france-with-major-investment\/ Publish Date:&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":260034,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/storage.googleapis.com\/media.mwcradio.com\/mimesis\/2026-05\/30\/2026-05-30T190150Z_1_LYNXMPEM4T0DB_RTROPTP_3_SOFTBANK-IPO-AI-FIRMS.JPG","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-260033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260033"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260033"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260033\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":260036,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260033\/revisions\/260036"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}