French President Emmanuel Macron announced investments of 109 billion euros for the expansion of artificial intelligence in France. This is intended to increase Europe's influence in the global competition with the USA and China.

The announcement was made ahead of the AI Action Summit in Paris, where leading politicians and AI experts such as OpenAI chief Sam Altman are gathering. While major US tech companies like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta are investing a total of $300 billion in AI this year, and China is rapidly catching up with providers like DeepSeek, Macron is focusing on a massive acceleration of European initiatives.

A significant portion of the announced investments comes from the United Arab Emirates, which is providing up to 50 billion euros for a new data center campus in France. The initial financing is through the Abu Dhabi-based MGX Fund, which is also involved in the $500 billion "Stargate" project in the USA. Additionally, the Canadian asset manager Brookfield is investing 20 billion euros in AI infrastructures in France.

In addition to these major projects, a non-profit investment fund called Current AI will also be presented at the Paris summit. This is intended to promote "AI in the public interest" with a five-year target of 2.5 billion euros, including privacy-friendly health data projects. Already 400 million euros have been pledged for this.

Another central project is the EU AI Champions Initiative, a consortium led by General Catalyst of venture capital and private equity firms that plans to invest 150 billion euros in European AI startups and critical infrastructure over the next five years. Partners include KKR, Blackstone, EQT, CVC, and DST Global. The initiative is supported by over 60 European companies, including Volkswagen, Spotify, and the Italian-Dutch holding company Exor.

To improve the investment environment, a proposal for deregulation of European AI laws is to be presented to the EU Commission under Ursula von der Leyen. According to Jeannette zu Fürstenberg of General Catalyst, it is about "establishing Europe as a global leader in AI.

Macron uses the summit to position France as a central platform for European AI development. He particularly supports the Parisian start-up Mistral, one of the few European companies developing its own large language model platform. Together with India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Macron advocates for open AI systems to avoid being solely dependent on the closed platforms of American providers like OpenAI or Google.