Data Centres

• SoftBank has announced plans to invest up to €75 billion to develop artificial intelligence data centers across France. • The first of these facilities are expected to become operational within the next five years. • This massive investment underscores the growing global competition to build the physical infrastructure necessary to support advanced AI processing.

• SoftBank Group has committed up to €75 billion to develop 5 GW of AI data center capacity in France, though only €45 billion of that investment is currently firm. • The project is distinguished by its massive scale and a strategic partnership with Schneider Electric to integrate data center capacity with onshore manufacturing. • This move expands SoftBank's global AI footprint, complementing its involvement in the $500 billion Stargate initiative with OpenAI and Oracle in the United States.

• SoftBank is investing €75 billion to develop 5 gigawatts of AI data centers in France, marking Masayoshi Son's largest investment bet in Europe. • The project's first phase will allocate €45 billion to deliver 3.1 GW of capacity in northern France by 2031. • The deal follows personal courtship by President Emmanuel Macron, whose commitment to the initiative reportedly impressed Son.

Growing fleet of datacentres last year used 22% of the country’s electricityEnergy demand by datacentres in Ireland has added hundreds of euros to household electricity bills in a pattern that could be replicated across Europe, according to a new report.The centres have “drained” €715m (£620m) from the Irish economy and increased household bills by a cumulative average of €360 between 2015 and 2023, said the report commissioned by Friends of the Earth Ireland and Beyond Fossil Fuels. Continue reading...

• India's AI data center market is projected to unlock a $23 billion investment opportunity, with GPU deployments and capacity expected to triple by 2030. • The broader AI market is forecast to grow from $13 billion in 2025 to $131 billion by 2032, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 39%. • This surge is driven by increasing enterprise adoption and strategic investments in domestic capabilities, such as the development of indigenous large language models (LLMs).

• A new report released Wednesday indicates that rising AI adoption could create a $23 billion investment opportunity in India's data center sector. • The growth is expected to be driven by the deployment of 650,000 to 700,000 GPUs across the country's data centers over the next five years. • This surge in infrastructure is critical for supporting the increasing computational demands of artificial intelligence and expanding overall data center capacity.

• India's data center market is projected to experience massive growth, reaching an estimated value of nearly $46 billion by 2033. • The surge is primarily driven by the rapid adoption of cloud services and the increasing demand for AI-optimized infrastructure to handle complex workloads. • This shift represents a critical infrastructure race, as the market moves toward specialized facilities capable of supporting large-scale digital development.