Macron unveils plans to have €100.9 billion in AI investment in France

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French President Emmanuel Macron announced the value of French artificial intelligence in the next few years as Europe seeks a foothold in the United States and China with larger and faster development industries.

Macron touted new funding ahead of the AI Action Summit in Paris, which began on Monday, including discussions between world leaders and AI executives such as Openai’s Sam Altman.

This comes after President Donald Trump last month called Stargate a $500 billion AI infrastructure project that will be built in the United States and led by Openai and Softbank.

Large tech groups Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta ranked $300 billion in AI-related capital expenditures this year.

Meanwhile, Chinese groups such as DeepSeek have made great strides in developing competitive and low-cost AI models, while Huawei has made substantial investments in building chips that can rival market leader Nvidia.

Faced with such competition, “Europe and France must accelerate their investment,” Macron told France 2 TV on Sunday.

To this end, France will announce on Monday that the company has agreed to invest 100.9 billion euros in the country's AI projects in the next few years.

“This is the equivalent of the Stargate announced by the United States,” Macron said.

The move underscores Macron's determination to be part of the development and commercialization of cutting-edge technologies in France and Europe.

A French investment will come from the United Arab Emirates, which said last week it will invest up to €50 billion in new data centers.

The initial financing will come from the MGX fund in Abu Dhabi, a $10 billion investment vehicle involving Stargate, and a group of French companies will join in later.

On Sunday, Canadian asset manager Brookfield also announced a €20 billion investment to support the deployment of French AI infrastructure.

Another outcome of the Paris Summit will be the creation of a nonprofit investment fund called “Current AI” that aims to further launch what is called “public interest AI” such as creating privacy-friendly, anonymous healthcare data for AI projects. There is a fundraising target of about €2.5 billion.

European startups have long lagged behind their U.S. and Chinese counterparts due to insufficient funds, access to computing power and how to apply regulations.

For Macron, the summit is an opportunity to prove that France can still play soft functions on large global issues such as AI.

He advocates Europe to develop its own AI platforms and applications so as not to rely solely on our and Chinese innovations to achieve a technology that will impact many business, consumer and social fields.

In particular, he has been a cheerleader for Paris-based AI startup Mistral, one of the only major builders of major language models in Europe, whose CEO Arthur Mensch is expected to be the French summit.

Macron and other leaders, such as co-host Narendra Modi of India, are expected to advocate for more “open” and shared AI platforms, such as those built by Mistral and Deepseek, while Not a closed alternative provided by OpenAI and Google and Google.

Yann Lecun, a well-known French researcher at META, said that the U.S. company with closed models “has a misplaced advantage complex,” adding: “The open world is catching up with them.”

Ivan Levingston of London, Henry Foy of Brussels and Barbara Moens