What's New: The Formal Announcement Landed Monday

Previous coverage confirmed the €75 billion figure and Macron's personal role in closing it.

Masayoshi Son sat down with La Tribune Dimanche on Saturday, May 31, and put the full number on record himself — unprompted, before the official Versailles stage. "This will be the largest investment in Europe in infrastructure related to artificial intelligence: 75 billion euros in total," Son told the French weekly, according to Le Monde and Economic Times reporting. The formal announcement then dropped Monday at Macron's international investment conference at Versailles palace, making it official.

Schneider Electric CEO Just Gave You the Clearest Benchmark Yet

Schneider Electric CEO Olivier Blum told AFP that France currently has roughly 1.5 gigawatts of installed data center capacity — total, as of end of 2025. SoftBank's plan builds 3.1 GW in phase one alone, then pushes to 5 GW total. According to CNBC, Blum called this "the largest project ever undertaken in France" in the sector.

SoftBank is multiplying France's AI infrastructure by more than three times.

Blum's Schneider Electric is the confirmed engineering partner for the industrial production cluster in Dunkirk — the first major site in the Hauts-de-France region, alongside Bosquel and Bouchain.

Why France Won This — And It Has Nothing to Do With Macron's Charm

Every mainstream outlet is leading with Macron's diplomatic skill. The real story is different.

Son was blunt about what actually closed the deal. "The fact that the country is an energy producer and exporter is absolutely crucial for infrastructure investments in artificial intelligence, especially for data centers," Son told La Tribune Dimanche, per Le Monde.

France runs on nuclear power. That gives it stable, relatively cheap electricity — the single biggest operating cost for a data center at AI scale. Germany, by contrast, spent the last decade dismantling its nuclear fleet in favor of wind and gas, and is now paying the price with energy costs that make large-scale compute investment economically brutal.

The real advantage is France's nuclear grid, not political salesmanship. Mainstream coverage is almost universally missing this point.

SoftBank's Position: Why Son Has the Cash to Do This

SoftBank overtook Toyota to become Japan's most valuable company by market cap, according to FactSet data cited by CNBC. The company's shares have risen more than 70% in 2026 so far.

The fuel behind that run: SoftBank's stake in Arm Holdings, whose chip designs power AI servers running on Nvidia systems, and its investment in OpenAI — over $30 billion plowed in, with SoftBank holding an 11% stake in the ChatGPT parent company, according to Le Monde.

Son isn't betting on AI. Son IS AI infrastructure at this point. This France commitment is the largest single geographic expression of that position.

Meanwhile, London Is Quietly Winning the Talent War

Also on Monday, Nvidia-backed AI company Runway exclusively told CNBC it is making London its European headquarters, committing more than $200 million into the U.K.'s AI ecosystem by end of 2028. Runway — valued at $5.3 billion after a $315 million Series E featuring General Atlantic, AMD Ventures, and Nvidia — is building what it calls "world models," AI systems that learn from audio, images, video, and real-world data, not just language.

Runway co-CEO Anastasis Germanidis cited proximity to major European clients including BBC, Fremantle, and WPP, plus the London talent pool. U.K. AI Minister Kanishka Narayan confirmed the move in a government statement.

This follows Anthropic announcing London expansion space for 800 people in April, and OpenAI unveiling its first permanent U.K. office shortly after.

Europe is splitting: France is winning the infrastructure war (data centers, compute capacity, energy-intensive hardware). London is winning the talent and commercial war (headquarters, research labs, client-facing operations). These are not the same thing.

What This Means for Regular People

If you're a European taxpayer or worker, the takeaway is straightforward.

Countries that kept their nuclear plants running are now getting hundreds of billions in private investment. Countries that shut them down for ideological reasons are watching it flow elsewhere. No government subsidy created this deal — Son went where the electrons are cheap and reliable.

For Americans watching from the outside: the U.S. still leads globally, but Europe is not surrendering the AI race. It's consolidating around two hubs — French compute and British talent — and SoftBank just made that restructuring permanent.