Microsoft and Amazon to invest $5.6 Billion in France as Macron woos US tech giants

Microsoft and Amazon are injecting billions of dollars into France’s tech industry as French President Macron doubles down on his efforts to promote the country as an artificial intelligence (AI) hub for global tech companies.

In an announcement on Monday, Microsoft said it’s investing 4 billion euros ($4.3 billion) towards the expansion of its cloud and AI infrastructure in France. The funding is in addition to billions of dollars the Redmond-based tech giant is investing in AI skilling and support for France’s tech sector.

As part of its investment, Microsoft added it also plans to bring up to 25,000 of the most advanced GPUs (graphics processing units) to France by the end of 2025. The tech giant will also train 1 million people and support 2,500 AI tech startups by 2027, Microsoft said during the “Choose France” summit, an event dedicated to encouraging foreign investment in France.

“This major investment demonstrates a steadfast commitment to supporting digital innovation and economic growth in France,” said Microsoft’s president, Brad Smith, in a statement Monday.

As part of its investment, Microsoft said that it will also open a new data center in the French city of Mulhouse, CNBC reported.

“We are building state-of-the-art Cloud and AI infrastructure, training people with AI skills, and supporting French startups as they use our technology with confidence to grow in a fair and responsible way.”

Microsoft is not alone. E-commerce giant Amazon also announced that it plans to invest 1.2 billion euros which will go toward creating more than 3,000 jobs in France and also increasing the company’s footprint in the country, according to Amazon’s country manager Frederic Duval.

In a statement on Monday, Duval said: “The expansion of our logistics network supports local economic development, creates quality jobs, and allows us to reduce the carbon footprint of our deliveries while improving the overall customer experience.”

In total, the combined investments from the two US tech giants equal $5.6 billion. Overall, France has reportedly received a record 15 billion euros of investment commitments from foreign tech companies at the annual Choose France summit on Monday.

French President Emmanuel Macron is been trying to woo major tech companies to invest in France since he became president. As we reported back in 2019, Macro has been promoting France as the best European-friendly country for technology startups. He even went as far as putting digitization at the heart of his 2017 manifesto.

Most notably, he launched the ‘French tech visa’ before leaving his post in 2017, significantly reducing the barriers to recruiting non-EU talent to tech companies in France. Macron even considered leaving politics to start his own ‘Edutech’ startup in 2014, co-funded by French tech magnate Xavier Niel, the founder of the Station F startup campus. Macro’s effort is already bearing fruit. Today, Paris is now a major center of AI research and development. In 2015, Facebook established one of its main AI labs, FAIR, In France.

Last year, Macron announced 500 million euros in fresh funding to create new AI “champions” during the VivaTech technology fair in Paris. This is in addition to previous commitments from the government, including a pledge to invest 1.5 billion euros into AI before 2022.

Microsoft has been very active in Europe since it joined the AI race in 2022. As we reported early this year, Microsoft is also one of the major investors in OpenAI’s rival Mistral. Microsoft recently deepened its ties with Mistral through a $16 million investment, signaling a strategic partnership to leverage Mistral’s AI models on its Azure cloud platform.