SoftBank Group committed up to €75 billion on Saturday to build 5 gigawatts of A.I. data-center capacity across northern France by 2031, the Japanese conglomerate’s largest European wager and the anchor announcement of President Emmanuel Macron’s annual Choose France summit. Masayoshi Son and Mr. Macron presented the project jointly at the Élysée Palace on Monday, framing it as a sovereign-compute coup for a bloc that has spent two years watching the A.I. infrastructure race unfold mostly in American and Gulf jurisdictions.

The first phase commits €45 billion to 3.1 gigawatts in the Hauts-de-France region. SoftBank will partner with EDF at the Bouchain site and with Schneider Electric on an industrial cluster at the Port of Dunkirk. Roland Lescure, France’s minister for industry and energy, cited “fast access to the most reliable electrical grid in Europe” as central to the siting decision, a polite restatement of the fact that high power costs have stalled hyperscale buildouts elsewhere on the continent. France’s nuclear fleet is, for once, the asset class everyone wants exposure to.

The deal is also a story about personal diplomacy. After Mr. Macron visited Japan earlier this year, Mr. Son told La Tribune he had been “very impressed” that the French president approached him directly. Bloomberg had reported Mr. Son initially floated something closer to $100 billion. What landed is smaller, and the financing remains delicate: a planned $10 billion margin loan backed by SoftBank’s OpenAI stake was scaled back to roughly $6 billion after creditors balked.

“AI is entering a new era, and the countries that build the infrastructure for this transformation will shape the future of technology, industry and society,” Mr. Son said. He was blunter elsewhere: “U.S. is going fast, China is going fast, Europe, Japan, Asia have to also go fast, not to be left out.”

The French government expects roughly €93 billion in foreign-investment commitments across this year’s summit, with SoftBank’s pledge doing most of the symbolic work.

It also fits a pattern. SoftBank announced a $500 billion Ohio project in March, anchors the $500 billion Stargate venture with OpenAI, Oracle and Abu Dhabi’s MGX, and has put more than $60 billion into OpenAI for roughly a 13 percent stake. Tokyo investors clearly read the French announcement as continuity rather than overreach: SoftBank shares rose 14 percent on Monday.

Mr. Son is now functionally underwriting the compute layer of three jurisdictions at once, on borrowed money collateralized by a private-company stake. The 2031 delivery date is the part of the press release worth watching.

Sources