Digital Event Horizon
France is investing heavily in artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure to drive innovation across various industries, with a focus on reducing its carbon footprint and becoming one of the world's greenest leaders in AI. NVIDIA plays a significant role in this effort, providing the necessary technology and expertise to support France's national strategy for AI.
France has allocated €109 billion towards developing its AI infrastructure projects as part of the France 2030 investment plan. NVIDIA is providing technology, expertise, and support to help France establish itself as a leader in artificial intelligence. The partnership between Mistral AI and NVIDIA aims to provide enterprises with full control over their AI projects. France plans to become one of the world's greenest leaders in artificial intelligence by leveraging its abundant electricity supply, decarbonized grid, and low-carbon AI sites.
France is making significant strides in its national AI strategy, leveraging cutting-edge infrastructure provided by NVIDIA to drive innovation across various industries. The French government has allocated a substantial amount of funding – over €109 billion – towards developing its AI infrastructure projects as part of the broader France 2030 investment plan.
NVIDIA's role in this effort cannot be overstated. The company is providing the necessary technology, expertise, and support to help France establish itself as a leader in artificial intelligence. From high-performance computing systems to specialized hardware for quantum computing, NVIDIA is offering a range of solutions that are helping French researchers and startups push the boundaries of what is possible.
One key initiative is the development of Mistral AI's new compute platform, which will feature the latest-generation NVIDIA Grace Blackwell systems. These systems boast 18,000 Blackwell and Blackwell Ultra GPUs planned for deployment in the initial phase and additional plans to expand across multiple sites in 2026. The infrastructure will host Mistral AI's cloud application service, allowing customers to develop and run AI applications with Mistral AI's and other providers' open-source models.
The partnership between Mistral AI and NVIDIA also includes optimization of inference performance for several Mistral models using NVIDIA NIM microservices, including the new Mistral Nemotron model exclusively available with the NVIDIA AI Enterprise software platform. This collaborative effort aims to provide enterprises and the public sector with Mistral's AI expertise in building the best compute for AI, ensuring full control to businesses.
Furthermore, Mistral AI and NVIDIA are collaborating with Bpifrance, the French national investment bank, and MGX, the UAE's investment fund focused on AI and advanced technology, to establish Europe's largest AI campus – expected to reach a capacity of 1.4 gigawatts – in the Paris region. The campus will feature advanced NVIDIA compute infrastructure to support the full AI lifecycle, from model training and inference to deployment of generative and applied AI systems.
Scaleway, a France-founded European cloud service provider, is also playing a significant role in this effort. With more than a thousand NVIDIA Hopper GPUs powering its offerings, Scaleway provides domestic infrastructure that ensures access and compliance with EU data protection laws critical for businesses with a European footprint.
In addition to these initiatives, the French government has allocated funds towards acquiring the Jean Zay supercomputer operated by IDRIS, a national computing centre for the CNRS (France's National Centre for Scientific Research). Built by Eviden and powered by NVIDIA, this supercomputer accelerates the work of university and public sector researchers, developers, and data scientists across France.
The Jean Zay supercomputer integrates NVIDIA accelerated computing, including more than a thousand NVIDIA Hopper GPUs. This machine supports over 150 startups – including Hugging Face, Mistral AI, H Company, and LightOn – and powered 1,400+ AI projects in 2024. Moreover, the supercomputer's waste heat is reused to help heat more than 1,500 homes in the Saclay area, to the southwest of Paris.
France's national strategy for AI aims to drive innovation across various industries, from advertising for skincare and beauty, spearheaded by L'Oréal and Accenture, to transportation and the electric grid. With its decarbonized, abundant electricity supply, expanding high-voltage electric grid, and more than 30 ready-to-use, low-carbon AI sites throughout the country, France is poised to become one of the world's greenest leaders in artificial intelligence.
The collaboration between NVIDIA and Mistral AI is forging Europe's AI future. By combining strategic autonomy with expertise in AI and NVIDIA's most advanced technology, this partnership will provide enterprises and the public sector with full control over their AI projects. This synergy aims to drive business growth, improve efficiency, and enhance productivity across various sectors.
In conclusion, France's national AI strategy is gaining momentum, thanks to the significant support provided by NVIDIA. By leveraging cutting-edge infrastructure, expertise, and technology, French researchers, startups, and industries are poised to make substantial breakthroughs in the fields of artificial intelligence, high-performance computing, and quantum computing. As France continues to drive innovation across various industries, it's clear that NVIDIA will play a pivotal role in shaping this nation's future as a leader in AI.
Related Information:
https://www.digitaleventhorizon.com/articles/France-Bolsters-National-AI-Strategy-With-NVIDIA-Infrastructure-deh.shtml
https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/france-sovereign-ai-infrastructure/
https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/europe-ai-infrastructure
Published: Wed Jun 11 05:58:16 2025 by llama3.2 3B Q4_K_M
