Paris [France], June 2: President Emmanuel Macron said he was expecting "record" foreign investment amounting to €93 billion ($108 billion) at an international conference Monday, including for artificial intelligence and data centers. Around 200 executives from around the world are expected at the Versailles palace west of Paris for Macron's annual "Choose France" event. Last year's conference set a record of €20 billion ($23.3 billion) in announced projects.
But money already pledged for this year is set to surpass the combined €87 billion raised over the past eight years, according to Macron's office. "This edition of Choose France alone will make it possible to crystallize a record amount of €93 billion in confirmed investments, for more than 15,000 jobs. It is obviously by far a record edition, and it is historic," Macron said.
The pledges include €45 billion from Japanese tech investor SoftBank, Macron said.
Its founder, Masayoshi Son, said over the weekend that it would spend €75 billion on artificial intelligence infrastructure, including €45 billion by 2031 on data centers in northern France.
Macron said the other investments would be directed toward artificial intelligence, data centers, semiconductors, critical minerals, tractors and trucks, steel and healthcare.
Macron said the projects would help "make France by far the leading country hosting data centers" and "computing capacity in Europe", as well as a "forward base for the production of AI robots, and for industrialization through AI".
"We are clearly bridging the gap we had in computing capacities in Europe," compared with the United States and China, he added. SoftBank's Son said the country's nuclear-powered electricity was a key factor in choosing France. Now we can "convert electricity as a raw material into more high-value intelligence", he added, including for export.
Among other investors, Canadian asset manager Brookfield is to invest $10 billion in a data centre in northern France. The Emirati fund MGX and French public investment bank Bpifrance said they would be investing around €7.5 billion in AI-related infrastructure at a second site, after a first already under construction.
Retail giant Amazon - which said this month that it would invest more than €15 billion in France over the next three years, creating 7,000 jobs - said it would create an additional 1,000 jobs at three logistics centers.
Since the first "Choose France" in 2018, a year after Macron came to power, more than 230 projects have been announced, representing several thousand jobs, according to the Elysee.
France has attracted the most foreign investment in Europe for seven straight years, according to the consultancy EY. EY said France attracted 852 projects last year out of 5,026 recorded in 47 European countries - a 17 percent drop in a difficult international environment.
The country has notably attracted more projects linked to AI than anywhere else in Europe but industry has suffered, particularly the automobile, chemical and metallurgy sectors.
Economist Sylvain Bersinger said the announcements in Versailles should "not obscure the fact that overall corporate investment in France is depressed". "Reindustrialization remains more of a pious wish than a reality," he said. "France does not necessarily appear more attractive for foreign investors than its neighbors." Macron wants to make France a world leader in AI and has announced €1.55 billion of public investment to develop quantum technologies and semiconductors.
The Paris region is continental Europe's largest hub of data centers, with 160 facilities, according to the Paris Region Institute. But researchers say these energy-hungry warehouses create relatively few jobs. "For the same footprint, a logistics warehouse usually employs between 300 and 400 employees, whereas a data centre will have about 15 or 20," sociologist Loup Cellard said.
Source: Qatar Tribune
