A start

The British startup has abandoned the mega-project of a supercomputer worth 10 billion euros, which was announced by Emmanuel Macron at the AI summit, to focus its growth in the United States.

A cold blow to the French AI. The cloud startup Fluidstack has abandoned its data center mega-project worth 10 billion euros, which was supposed to be located in France, as reported by Bloomberg on Friday, March 20. The supercomputer was planned to be installed in Bosquel, in northern France. According to internal sources consulted by Bloomberg, the British company will also withdraw from a second site in the south of Paris, notably used by Mistral AI, as specified by the financial information agency.

These two infrastructures were meant to provide computing power of one gigawatt and accommodate around 500,000 next-generation chips. The first phase of the project was expected to be operational by 2026, within the framework of the 109 billion euro investment plan announced by Emmanuel Macron during the AI summit in February 2025. Fluidstack had previously signed a memorandum of understanding with the state and promised an “AI supercomputer” environmentally friendly, positioning France at the forefront of the global race for data centers.

Contacted by Le Figaro, the company has not yet commented on its decision. [Context: The startup has not provided any explanation for its decision to abandon the project.]

Heading towards the United States

The Bosquel supercomputer was one of the few sites designated by the electric network manager RTE as having adequate access to the power grid. This is an inevitable constraint when accommodating giant data centers. Out of the 109 billion euros committed in February 2025, around 67 billion have been secured, as announced by the Finance Ministry last January. Ten sites would have been secured out of the 13 announced at the AI summit. [Context: The project was part of a larger investment plan announced by the French government.]

Originating from the UK, Fluidstack has secured several significant contracts in the United States. Last November, the company announced a $50 billion contract with Anthropic, the company behind the chatbot Claude, intending to create around 800 jobs in Texas and New York. The tech giant Google is also looking to invest more than $100 million in the British startup. In December, the company announced its relocation to New York. [Fact Check: The company has been successful in securing contracts and investments in the US.]

Bloomberg does not mention any regulatory blockade or formal rupture of negotiations that would have diverted the startup from its projects in France, but highlights the economic arbitration in favor of the United States, which houses the leading AI champions in a much denser capital market. These strengths have already cost many startups to steer away from France. [Context: The decision to focus on the US market is driven by economic factors and the concentration of AI companies in the US market.]