Bpifrance, French AI company Mistral, and Abu Dhabi-backed investment fund MGX say they are now aiming for 3 gigawatts of AI computing capacity spread across France—an aggressive scale-up unveiled at the Choose France summit in early June.
The effort, branded “Campus AI,” brings together four shareholders: Bpifrance (France’s state-backed investment bank), Mistral (maker of the Le Chat assistant and the Mistral Large model family), MGX (an Emirati AI-focused investment fund), and Nvidia, which will supply most of the accelerated computing, according to a Bpifrance statement. Construction is set to begin in the second half of 2026, with operations expected by 2028.
Fouju first, with a second site to be named soon
The pilot campus is planned for Fouju, in the Seine-et-Marne department east of Paris. Mistral had already secured 96 megawatts there, with a ramp-up planned to 200 megawatts.
The newly announced expansion hinges on opening a second site, which IT Social described as close to being selected. The stated goal: make Campus AI the largest AI campus in Europe.
Data Center Dynamics reported that the initial site is sized for 1.4 gigawatts. The platform is expected to include exascale-class computing, a connection to a “sovereign cloud” (a France-based cloud designed to keep sensitive data under national control), and low-carbon hyperscale data centers—covering the full lifecycle from model training and inference to deploying generative and applied AI systems.
Mistral secures priority access to scarce computing power
A priority-access mechanism for Mistral sits at the center of the arrangement. As a shareholder, the French company will reserve guaranteed computing capacity across the network’s sites, regardless of how quickly the buildout scales.
In a market where GPU shortages can directly determine how competitive AI models are, the deal is designed to lock in long-term access to the most contested resource in the sector.
Nicolas Dufourcq, CEO of Bpifrance, said: “Bpifrance is proud to co-found this transformative European AI campus with MGX. This initiative highlights France’s scientific excellence, its ability to deploy cutting-edge infrastructure, and its attractiveness for top talent.”
MGX’s broader AI bets—and the Macron-UAE backdrop
MGX is already involved in OpenAI’s Stargate project, a similar operation in Italy with Eni and G42, and it is part of a $30 billion AI infrastructure fund led by BlackRock.
The Campus AI expansion also follows AI cooperation agreements signed in February 2025 between French President Emmanuel Macron and UAE President Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan. The consortium’s total investment will be at least doubled compared with the initial commitment, according to Abu Dhabi’s media office.
