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SoftBank plans 75 billion euro AI data center buildout in France
SoftBank is planning to build AI data centers with a total capacity of 5 gigawatts in France, an investment worth up to 75 billion euros.
The first phase calls for 45 billion euros in data centers with 3.1 gigawatts of capacity in the Hauts-de-France region by 2031, spread across sites in Dunkirk, Bosquel, and Bouchain. It's SoftBank's largest AI infrastructure investment in Europe, announced at President Macron's Choose France summit.
SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son called France ideally positioned to become a leading AI infrastructure hub in Europe. Together with Schneider Electric, the company plans to build a manufacturing cluster for data center components in Dunkirk. Economy Minister Roland Lescure pointed to France's advantages: fast access to the European power grid, a strong ecosystem, and streamlined permitting. The investment is expected to create thousands of jobs.
At the Bosquel site, SoftBank is working with French startup Sesterce to build a large-scale "AI factory" that combines energy, compute power, and local partnerships. Sesterce CEO Youssef El Manssouri called the partnership "a defining moment […] for the future of sovereign AI infrastructure in Europe." France is also home to Mistral, the only relevant EU AI startup with its own large language models.
SoftBank's global spending spree still has a lot to prove
Globally, SoftBank is involved in numerous infrastructure projects alongside the Stargate project in the US, though many of these projects have yet to actually materialize. In Abu Dhabi, a data center called "Stargate UAE" is being built with G42, targeting up to one gigawatt of capacity. SoftBank is a partner in that venture, promising $100 billion in AI infrastructure investments.
In Japan, SoftBank is rallying the country's industrial elite, including NEC, Honda, Sony, and three major banks, to develop a homegrown foundation model with one trillion parameters. All data processing is supposed to stay on Japanese soil, partly in a former Sharp LCD factory in Sakai near Osaka.
In the UK, OpenAI and SoftBank are considering the first international Stargate site, but expansion depends on how the US project goes. That effort is reportedly on hold right now.
In South Korea, Masayoshi Son met with President Lee Jae Myung in December 2025 to discuss AI and semiconductor partnerships. SoftBank is setting up a chip design facility there to tap the country's strong manufacturing base. SoftBank also acquired British AI chip company Graphcore and invested an additional $457 million. In India, Graphcore is investing up to one billion pounds in a new AI campus in Bengaluru.
SoftBank is also one of OpenAI's largest investors and has been taking out loans against its stake to fund these investments. In May, Bloomberg reported that one of those loans was cut from $10 billion to as little as $6 billion because lenders had doubts about OpenAI's actual valuation.