France and India Court AI Data Centers as Power Squeezes

France and India are courting tech CEOs for AI data center investment as SoftBank and Microsoft lead a fresh wave of capital into both countries. Both leaders have personally courted the executives behind the deals. President Emmanuel Macron hosted SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son at the Choose France summit in May. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has met Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, Amazon’s Andy Jassy and Google’s Sundar Pichai in the past year.

The pitch is fast-track permits, predictable regulation and grid access. The binding constraints are the megawatt-hours, the cubic metres of water and the regulatory certainty those projects will demand. SoftBank’s €75 billion program and Microsoft’s India push have already exposed where the deals will pass or stall.

A SoftBank-Sized Vote for France

SoftBank Group committed to 5 GW of AI data center capacity in France, an investment of up to €75 billion, at the Choose France summit hosted by President Emmanuel Macron on May 30, 2026. The first phase, worth €45 billion, covers 3.1 GW in the Hauts-de-France region by 2031, with sites in Dunkirk (Loon-Plage), Bosquel and Bouchain. Additional sites are planned across France to reach the 5 GW total. SoftBank will work with SB Energy and other strategic partners on the program.

Macron personally requested a meeting with SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son two months before the announcement, Son said, and the two leaders continued discussions through text messages while finalising the proposal. Son cited Macron’s pitch on France’s abundant electricity supply, largely generated through nuclear power, as a deciding factor, along with the government’s offer to scale a 2 GW project up to 3 GW to make the deal work. SoftBank’s CEO told CNBC the two had agreed to keep working together at scale.

SoftBank will work with EDF on the Bouchain site and with Schneider Electric on a robotised production cluster at the Port of Dunkirk. Economy Minister Roland Lescure tied the program to “fast access to the most reliable electrical grid in Europe, a strong digital and industrial base with a skilled workforce, and a government that works in unison with local authorities and stakeholders to fast track procedures for strategic projects.” The Bouchain and Dunkirk sites will draw on EDF-supplied power. Schneider Electric will operate a second plant in the cluster to integrate data center power modules. Together, the partners are building a local supply chain for AI infrastructure across France and Europe.

There’s no choice. U.S. is going fast, China is going fast, Europe, Japan, Asia have to also go fast, not to be left out.

Son, chairman and CEO of SoftBank Group, said that to CNBC at the Choose France summit in May 2026. He has also said the full investment is closer to $750 billion when the surrounding system is counted, an estimate that goes well beyond the €75 billion headline.

• 5 GW: total AI data center capacity SoftBank plans in France
• €75 billion: total program value, with €45 billion in the first phase
• 3.1 GW: first-phase capacity in Hauts-de-France by 2031
• 4 sites: Dunkirk (Loon-Plage), Bosquel, Bouchain, plus additional planned

India Lays Out Its Hyperscaler Stack

Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Amazon CEO Andy Jassy last week and welcomed the company’s record $48 billion investment commitment in India, including $21 billion earmarked for AI and cloud infrastructure. Modi has met Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan over the past year. Each executive has expressed support for expanding India’s AI capabilities and digital infrastructure.

Microsoft, on December 9, 2025, announced its largest investment in Asia: $17.5 billion over four years (CY 2026 to 2029) to advance India’s cloud and AI infrastructure. The investment builds on a $3 billion commitment Microsoft announced in January 2025 and adds a new hyperscale region in Hyderabad set to go live in mid-2026. Amazon Web Services, in a May 2023 announcement, said it would invest INR 1,05,600 crores (US$12.7 billion) into cloud infrastructure in India by 2030, on top of its existing commitment, taking AWS’s total India pledge to US$16.4 billion by 2030. Google, ahead of the Global AI Summit in India, unveiled a $15 billion plan for an AI hub outside the United States. All four companies are now aligned around New Delhi’s pitch to design and develop AI inside India for export to the world.

India’s data center capacity has nearly tripled since 2020, reaching about 1.5 GW in 2025 from 375 MW in 2020. The Council on Energy, Environment and Water projects capacity to reach 6.5 GW by 2030, per a new assessment of the sector. About 38,231 GPUs have been onboarded through 14 empanelled service providers under India’s AI compute capacity framework, offered at a subsidised average rate of ₹65 per hour, roughly one-third of the global average. Across the sector, total committed investments between 2019 and 2025 reached approximately US$95 billion, per the CEEW report.

India is also buying its way into the chip stack. During Modi’s visit to the Netherlands in May, Dutch chip equipment maker ASML agreed to provide advanced lithography systems for the 300mm semiconductor fabrication plant being developed by Tata Electronics. Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan, who met Modi in December, has also agreed to become a prospective customer for chips produced by Tata Electronics. Google, ahead of the same summit, unveiled a $15 billion plan for an AI hub outside the US. Tata’s 300mm fab is still in build. Together, the chip and cloud commitments span silicon, data center and cloud layers of the AI stack.

India does not see fear in AI. India sees fortune in AI. India sees the future in AI.

Modi, Prime Minister of India, said those lines in his opening remarks at the Global AI Summit in India in February. He framed AI as fortune, not fear, and asked the audience to “Design and Develop in India” for the world.

• Amazon: $48 billion total India commitment, $21 billion earmarked for AI and cloud
• Microsoft: $17.5 billion over CY 2026-2029, on top of $3 billion from January 2025
• AWS: $12.7 billion by 2030, taking total AWS India pledge to $16.4 billion
• Google: $15 billion for an AI hub outside the US, announced before the Global AI Summit

Power Becomes the Binding Limit

The single constraint that runs through every deal is power. Son made Macron’s nuclear pitch the centerpiece of his announcement. Microsoft, on June 22, 2026, gave the same logic a US setting when it unveiled a 2 GW data center campus in Pecos, Texas. The company disclosed that it is funding its own behind-the-meter natural gas power facility, with Selective Catalytic Reduction systems to limit emissions, because the public grid could not deliver the speed or scale required.

India’s Ministry of Electronics and IT estimates electricity demand from data centres will reach 13.56 GW by 2031-32, up from about 0.5% of national electricity consumption today, per a March 2026 statement on India’s data centre capacity. To bridge that gap, Parliament passed the SHANTI Act to strengthen the nuclear energy sector and support small modular and micro nuclear reactors for emerging sectors such as AI and data centres. The country is also expanding renewable supply, with solar and wind hybrids tied directly to hyperscaler campuses. Energy buyers are signing long-term contracts to lock in supply and lower emissions tied to AI adoption. India’s national transmission infrastructure is being expanded to meet the demand, the ministry said.

France’s pitch is built on the same premise from the opposite direction. Its grid runs predominantly on nuclear power, which is carbon-free and, in Macron’s framing, fast to interconnect. SoftBank’s site at Bouchain will run on EDF-supplied power, and Microsoft has contracted 4.7 GW of renewable electricity in Texas to underpin its US build.

Water and Land Tighten the Frame

Beyond electricity, data centres also draw on water and land. India’s data centre industry consumed approximately 150 billion litres of water in 2025. The Council on Energy, Environment and Water projects that figure to more than double by 2030. Operators are shifting to direct-to-chip liquid cooling, adiabatic cooling and immersion cooling to minimise water use, the Indian government told parliament in March 2026. Air cooling is being deployed in certain climates to reduce pressure on local aquifers.

India hosted about 271 data centres as of January 2026, occupying roughly 23 million square metres of land, with Mumbai alone accounting for nearly a quarter of the total. Newer campuses will need larger plots for hyperscale halls, substations and water treatment. Fifteen Indian states have now notified dedicated data centre policies to shape the permitting map.

Regulation Reshapes Site Selection

France’s pitch leans on its place inside the EU regulatory perimeter. The EU AI Act enters full applicability on 2 August 2026, and France is positioning itself as the European base for training and inference at scale. Lescure tied SoftBank’s decision to a “government that works in unison with local authorities and stakeholders to fast track procedures for strategic projects,” framing the country as a place where compliance and speed can be packaged together.

India is layering in its own compliance stack. Microsoft’s December 2025 announcement introduced Sovereign Public Cloud and Sovereign Private Cloud for Indian customers, with Microsoft 365 Copilot set to process data fully in-country by the end of 2025, making India one of four global markets with that capability. The Indian government’s 2026 Union Budget extended a long-term tax holiday for data centre investments to 2047, per the Council on Energy, Environment and Water. AWS, Microsoft and Google have all signed renewable energy purchase agreements to power their Indian cloud regions.

Operators now weigh EU regulatory alignment against sovereign cloud options in India when picking workloads. State-backed power, fast-track permits and sovereign cloud offerings have become the three legs of the pitch in both capitals.

The Supply Chain Squeeze

Even with money and permits, the physical kit is the next gate. India is closing the chip gap from the demand side: ASML’s deal to supply Tata Electronics and Intel’s agreement to buy Tata-made chips are direct attempts to anchor a domestic fabrication industry. Tata’s 300mm fab is still in build. The country continues to depend on overseas AI models and advanced computing hardware, leaving its AI ambitions exposed to export controls and technology restrictions imposed by other countries. Tighter US export controls on advanced chips have raised the stakes for any country that wants sovereign AI infrastructure.

Both deal timelines are stretched to absorb that risk. Microsoft’s $17.5 billion India plan is spread across calendar years 2026 to 2029, and SoftBank’s first phase targets 3.1 GW in Hauts-de-France by 2031 as part of a 5 GW program. The Council on Energy, Environment and Water has called for phased growth to align data centre expansion with power, water and land capacity.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is France’s pitch to AI data center companies?

France is selling fast-track permits, a low-carbon grid anchored on nuclear power, and alignment with EU data rules. Economy Minister Roland Lescure tied SoftBank’s €75 billion program to “fast access to the most reliable electrical grid in Europe, a strong digital and industrial base with a skilled workforce, and a government that works in unison with local authorities and stakeholders to fast track procedures for strategic projects.”

How much is Microsoft investing in India?

Microsoft announced $17.5 billion over four years (calendar years 2026 to 2029) on December 9, 2025, building on an earlier $3 billion commitment from January 2025. The plan covers hyperscale infrastructure, skilling and ongoing operations and adds a new India South Central cloud region in Hyderabad set to go live in mid-2026.

What is India’s current data center capacity?

India hosted about 1.5 GW of installed data centre capacity as of 2025, up from 375 MW in 2020, with about 271 data centres across the country as of January 2026, per a Council on Energy, Environment and Water assessment. Capacity is projected to reach 6.5 GW by 2030.

When does the EU AI Act come into full effect?

The AI Act entered into force on 1 August 2024 and will be fully applicable on 2 August 2026. Prohibited AI practices and AI literacy obligations took effect in February 2025, GPAI model rules became applicable in August 2025, and high-risk AI system rules embedded in regulated products have an extended transition period until 2 August 2028.

What is the main constraint on India’s AI data center buildout?

Electricity supply. India’s Ministry of Electronics and IT estimates data centre electricity demand will reach 13.56 GW by 2031-32. Water and land sit behind power, with data centre water use projected to more than double by 2030 from about 150 billion litres in 2025.