What happened
Abu Dhabi's MGX, in a joint venture with Bpifrance, Nvidia, and Mistral, expanded its Campus AI initiative in France, committing €7.5 billion ($8.7 billion) to build 3 gigawatts of compute capacity. This positions France as the UAE's primary EU technology partner. The planned data centers will utilise water-free cooling and France’s nuclear-heavy electricity grid for lower-carbon operations. Separately, G42's infrastructure subsidiary Core42 announced plans to more than triple its computing capacity to 60 megawatts in Buffalo, New York.
Why it matters
Access to substantial, lower-carbon AI compute capacity will reshape infrastructure planning for European and US-based AI developers. MGX's €7.5 billion ($8.7 billion) Campus AI expansion provides 3 gigawatts of compute, leveraging water-free cooling and nuclear power, directly supporting Mistral AI's competitive efforts against US frontier models. This follows SoftBank's recent €45 billion commitment to French AI, indicating a growing trend of significant investment in European AI infrastructure. Procurement teams and infrastructure architects should assess the strategic advantages of these geographically diversified, energy-efficient compute options.
