Macron and Modi court tech CEOs in AI infrastructure push
▼ Summary
– French President Macron and Indian PM Modi are personally courting tech CEOs to secure AI infrastructure investments, with Macron securing a €75 billion SoftBank deal and Modi obtaining a $48 billion Amazon commitment.
– Macron’s method involves direct engagement, such as texting SoftBank’s Son and hosting G7 lunches with AI leaders, while Modi uses bilateral meetings with CEOs like Amazon’s Jassy and AI startup heads.
– India’s AI investment pipeline is enormous, including Reliance’s $110 billion commitment, Google’s $15 billion pledge, and OpenAI’s partnership with Tata Group.
– The UK serves as a cautionary example, with OpenAI pausing its Stargate data centre project due to high electricity prices and regulatory issues.
– While pledges face risks of non-delivery, France and India have concrete progress: France has construction underway with EDF, and India has signed contracts with specific timelines and corporate entities.
The global competition for AI infrastructure has shifted from policy documents to personal diplomacy, with French President Emmanuel Macron and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi leading the charge. Both leaders are directly engaging with the CEOs of the world’s largest technology firms, securing massive investments in data centres that will power the next generation of AI systems. Their approaches differ, but the core strategy is the same: heads of state, not white papers, unlock capital. The results have already reached tens of billions of dollars.
Macron’s most notable victory came in May, when SoftBank committed up to €75 billion to build 5 gigawatts of AI data centre capacity in France. The initial phase, valued at €45 billion, will deliver 3.1 gigawatts across three sites in the Hauts-de-France region by 2031. State-owned EDF is providing a former power plant in Bouchain as one location. The deal was sealed through personal rapport: Macron approached SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son during a visit to Japan earlier this year, and the two exchanged text messages during negotiations. In June, Macron leveraged France’s G7 presidency to host a working lunch that brought together world leaders and CEOs from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, and Mistral. The preceding Choose France Summit attracted €93 billion in total investment pledges, with AI infrastructure as the centrepiece.
Modi has pursued a parallel strategy with a different set of partners. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy met the prime minister in New Delhi in late June and announced a $48 billion investment commitment through 2030. Of that, $21 billion will fund AI and cloud infrastructure expansion in Mumbai and Hyderabad. At the India AI Impact Summit in February, Modi held bilateral meetings with 16 AI startup CEOs, including Sam Altman, Dario Amodei, and Demis Hassabis. India also served as the AI Country Partner at VivaTech 2026 in Paris, with more than 80 Indian deep-tech companies exhibiting alongside European counterparts. The Indian pipeline is immense: Reliance Industries committed $110 billion to AI infrastructure over seven years, Google pledged $15 billion for what it calls India’s first gigawatt-scale AI hub, and OpenAI is partnering with Tata Group to build 100 megawatts of capacity, with plans to scale to one gigawatt.
The UK offers a cautionary tale. OpenAI paused its Stargate UK data centre project in April, citing electricity prices roughly four times higher than in the United States and unresolved regulatory questions around AI copyright. Meanwhile, China is pursuing a different model entirely, offering AI capabilities to developing nations as a geopolitical tool while the G7 debates export controls. The competition Macron and Modi face is not just with each other but with a rival approach that treats AI distribution as diplomacy by other means.
The sums involved carry a familiar caveat. SoftBank’s €75 billion is an “up to” commitment, Amazon’s $48 billion is cumulative from 2026 through 2030, and the £31 billion in UK tech investment pledges that accompanied Stargate UK have largely failed to materialise. The difference, so far, is that France has construction underway at identified sites with EDF as energy partner, and India has signed contracts with specific timelines and corporate entities whose reputations are attached to delivery. Whether the personal relationships that generated these commitments can sustain them through years of construction, permitting, and energy procurement is the question that neither charm nor text messages can answer.
(Source: The Next Web)