SoftBank to Invest 132 Trillion Won in AI Data Center in France, the Largest in Europe

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[Financial News, Tokyo = Seo Hye-jin, correspondent] Japan's SoftBank Group Corp. will invest up to 14 trillion yen, or about 132.47 trillion won, to build Europe's largest artificial intelligence (AI) data center in France. The facility will have a total capacity of 5 gigawatts (GW), a move seen as part of a strategy to expand AI infrastructure beyond the United States and into Europe in response to surging demand for AI computing.
\r\nAccording to Nihon Keizai Shimbun, The Nikkei, and The Asahi Shimbun on the 31st, Masayoshi Son, chairman and president of SoftBank Group Corp., is expected to formally announce the investment plan in France to coincide with the French government's investment promotion event, "Choose France," which will be held on the 1st of next month.
The decision reportedly follows a request from French President Emmanuel Macron, who recently visited Japan and asked SoftBank to expand its investment.
The data center will be SoftBank's first AI base in Europe. In the first phase, the company will invest 4.5 billion euros, or about 7.9 trillion won, over the next five years to build more than 3 GW of data center capacity in Dunkirk and Bosquer in the Hauts-de-France region of northern France.
\r\nAccording to The Asahi Shimbun, SoftBank will work with Schneider Electric, a French electrical equipment manufacturer, to secure the production system needed to support construction of the data center. The investment is expected to create thousands of jobs, especially in robotics and other science and technology fields related to energy systems.
SoftBank is also considering supplying computing resources not only to France but also to neighboring European countries.
The final investment amount is expected to reach 75 billion euros, or about 131.8 trillion won. However, SoftBank will not provide all of the funding directly. The project will combine partial investment with project financing (PF), while servers and AI semiconductors will be supplied directly by customers such as cloud service providers.
\r\nThe investment is being interpreted as a move to reduce regional concentration risk at a time when AI computing infrastructure is heavily centered in the United States.
\r\nSoftBank has designated the data center business as a growth area and is accelerating infrastructure investment. In particular, it is pushing ahead with a plan to build a data center in Ohio worth 8 trillion yen, or about 756.976 trillion won.
France is considered well positioned to operate large-scale data centers thanks to its power supply system centered on nuclear energy. As power securing has emerged as a key competitive advantage, construction costs are also seen as relatively lower than in the United States.
The French government is pursuing a strategy to attract more than 100 billion euros, or about 175.746 trillion won, in private and public investment over the next several years to foster its AI industry. The goal is to establish France as a "third pole" for AI, distinct from the United States and China.
In line with that effort, global big tech companies are also expanding their investments in France. Amazon Web Services (AWS) plans to invest more than 15 billion euros, or about 26.362 trillion won, in AI infrastructure from 2026 to 2028, while Microsoft (MS) has already announced an investment plan worth 4 billion euros, or about 7.03 trillion won, in the AI sector.
SoftBank plans to use this project as a springboard to fully target the European AI infrastructure market. However, as its financial burden has increased amid a recent surge in large-scale AI investments, concerns are also being raised that a slowdown in AI demand could delay returns on the investment.
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sjmary@fnnews.com Seo Hye-jin Reporter