The government of France and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have agreed on a joint framework agreement for a new 1GW AI data centre.
The project represents investments between $30bn and $50bn, reported Reuters.
Go deeper with GlobalData
The deal has been reached during a meeting between French President Emmanuel Macron and his Emirati counterpart, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan.
The framework agreement outlines investments from a consortium of Franco-Emirati entities, with the objective of establishing a 1GW AI campus in France.
A formal announcement regarding the first tranche of investment is scheduled for the Choose France 2025 Summit.
As part of the agreement, the countries seek to enhance cooperation in AI, focusing on joint projects and investments aimed at strengthening the AI value chain.
This includes funding for AI-driven initiatives in both France and the UAE, as well as the procurement of advanced semiconductor chips, development of data centres, and talent cultivation.
Additionally, the agreement provides for the creation of virtual data embassies, which will support sovereign AI and cloud infrastructure advancements in both nations.
Meanwhile, the French government reportedly confirmed that it has identified 35 locations suitable for hosting AI data centres.
In April 2024, the UAE’s Technology Innovation Institute introduced next generation of its Falcon AI models which is said to outperform Meta’s Llama 3 model.
Falcon 2 11B and 2 11B VLM were released as open source, making their code accessible to developers globally with unrestricted access.
Falcon 2 11B VLM features visual-to-language capabilities. This allows analysing images and generate captions to describe the contents of an image.
