France’s answer to Stargate: Macron announces AI investment

France’s artificial intelligence sector will receive 109 billion euros ($112.6 billion) of private investment in the “coming years,” President Emmanuel Macron announced Sunday ahead of the country’s global AI summit.

Speaking with French broadcaster TF1, Macron described the multibillion-euro pledge as “the equivalent for France of what the United States announced with Stargate,” referring to U.S. President Donald Trump’s massive $500 billion private AI investment project.

The U.S. joint venture, dubbed Stargate, will see OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank spend up to $500 billion on AI infrastructure in America over the next four years.

Meanwhile, the French financing will include commitments from the United Arab Emirates, American and Canadian investments funds and French companies like telecommunications firms Iliad and Orange, and aerospace and defense group Thales.

A few days before France’s AI Action Summit, which kicked off on Monday, the UAE said it would invest between 30 billion euros and 50 billion euros in the construction of a one-gigawatt AI data center in France as part of a campus focused on the technology’s development.

Iliad committed to spending 3 billion euros on AI infrastructure, while Paris-based AI firm Mistral announced plans to invest billions to build its own data center in France.

Victor Riparbelli, CEO of British AI startup Synthesia, said Macron’s 109-billion-euro investment plan was a “great” thing for the European AI ecosystem — but added that more is needed to ensure the continent is able to compete with tech heavyweights like the U.S. and China.

“We need to set the right foundations for Europe to thrive as an ecosystem,” Riparbelli told CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal Monday.

“It’s great that we invest more in infrastructure. I don’t think it’s the sole solution to the problem. There’s lots of other things we need to worry about as well. But what I think is really great, is there’s political will to actually do something,” he added.

The Artificial Intelligence Action Summit will see world leaders and bosses from some of the leading companies developing the technology gather in Paris.

Big-name attendees include U.S. Vice President JD Vance, EU President Ursula von der Leyen, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft President Brad Smith, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei.

Elon Musk is currently not slated to attend.

On Saturday, Axios reported that OpenAI’s Altman will this week warn world leaders they need to widen their AI mindset so that, rather than just focusing on risk — as has often been the case in Europe — leaders will instead look to embrace growth and opportunity.

The emergence of Chinese firm DeepSeek’s breakthrough open-source AI model R1 in recent weeks has stirred debates in the industry around the huge capital expenditures companies are committing toward computing infrastructure to train their systems.

DeepSeek said total training costs for its newest AI model amounted to $5.6 million. However, doubts have been raised about DeepSeek’s claims.

Last month, semiconductor research firm SemiAnalysis estimated that DeepSeek’s hardware spend is higher than $500 million over the company’s history, adding that the startup’s research and development and ownership costs are significant.

On Sunday, Google DeepMind’s Hassabis said DeepSeek’s AI model is “probably the best work” he’s seen out of China — but added that, from a technology point of view, it was not a big change.

“Despite the hype, there’s no actual new scientific advance … it’s using known techniques [in AI],” Hassabis said, adding that the hype around Deepseek has been “exaggerated a little bit.”

Nevertheless, with companies spending billions on data centers filled with advanced semiconductors from U.S. chipmaker Nvidia, DeepSeek’s new model has led to worries of a potential bubble in the AI space.

Ahead of the AI summit, Mike Capone, CEO of U.S. software firm Qlik, told CNBC that DeepSeek is likely to be a major discussion point this week as world governments grapple with China’s AI advances.

“This summit isn’t just about AI—it’s about influence,” Capone told CNBC on Friday. “Expect a strategic messaging war as U.S., French, and UK AI leaders downplay DeepSeek’s relevance while China works to prove it’s not just catching up — it’s setting the pace.”

“AI diplomacy is now as critical as AI development. The power struggle won’t be about who builds the best model; it’ll be about who controls the AI narrative,” he added.

– CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal contributed to this report