A country with deep nuclear power resources, France plans to dedicate a gigawatt of it (the power generated by 294 utility-scale wind turbines) for an artificial intelligence computing project that rivals the Stargate project announced last month by the Trump Administration.
Expected to cost tens of billions of dollars, “the plans would greatly expand Europe’s AI-computing capabilities to rival a vast expansion in the U.S. The projects are part of a $113 billion wave of investments that French President Emmanuel Macron is announcing at an AI summit that opens Monday in Paris,” according to an article in the Wall Street Journal.
In comments Monday in Paris at the AI Action Summit, French President Emmanuel Macron and said that his country, which is estimated to be 65-70 percent nuclear powered, has the resources for energy-hungry AI computing and the facilities to house them.
“I have a good friend in the other part of the ocean saying ‘drill, baby, drill,’ Macron said. “Here, there is no need to drill. It’s just ‘plug, baby, plug.’”
“The nuclear project, which aims to have a first tranche of 250 megawatts of power hooked up to AI-computing chips by the end of 2026, rivals the Stargate project in the U.S., backed by SoftBank and OpenAI. Stargate is starting with a campus in Texas initially fed by 200 megawatts of power, with plans to expand to 1.2 gigawatts,” the Journal reported.
Yesterday at the AI Action Summit, London-based Fluidstack, an AI cloud platform company, has signed a memorandum of understanding with the French government to build the 1 gigawatt AI supercomputing capability.\
Phase 1 of the project will be supported by an initial investment of €10 billion (USD 10.36 billion) and is set to become operational in 2026.
“This partnership allows us to rapidly develop the infrastructure needed to support the next wave of AI innovations. Partnering with the French government and global industry leaders, we are creating the most advanced computing capabilities in the world—right here in France. France’s commitment to digital and energy sovereignty makes it the ideal location for such an ambitious project, and I very am proud to be playing a key part in this initiative,” said Cesar Maklary, co-founder and president of Fluidstack.
The company said plans are in place to scale beyond 1 GW of dedicated AI compute by 2028.
“France is the leading European country in artificial intelligence,” Macron said. “Since 2017, we have trained our talents, developed our research, and strengthened our key players in healthcare, space, defense, and large language models. We have a role to play because our nuclear energy is controllable, safe, stable, and decarbonized—ideal for expanding our AI computing capabilities. This €10 billion agreement with Fluidstack embodies my ambition. We must not slow down because the world is accelerating and the battle for innovation is happening now.”
