Macron Secures SoftBank Billions for French AI Data Centers; Modi Courts Amazon's $48B India Investment

According to CNBC, French President Emmanuel Macron and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi are leading personal diplomatic pushes to attract major AI investments and infrastructure projects to their countries in 2026.

Macron convinced SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son to invest tens of billions of dollars in French AI data centers, with the company announcing plans in May to build 3.1 GW of capacity by 2031 as part of a 75-billion-euro program. Modi met with Amazon CEO Andy Jassy last Thursday and secured the tech giant's record $48 billion investment in India, of which $21 billion will fund AI and cloud infrastructure. Modi previously met with Microsoft, Google, and Intel leadership, all of whom committed to developing India's AI ecosystem.