Jurisdiction: France
SoftBank Group program announced 2026-05-30 (ahead of the Choose France summit) to develop and operate up to 5 GW of AI data center capacity in France for up to EUR 75bn (~USD 87bn). Phase 1 (EUR 45bn / 3.1 GW by end-2031) spans three Hauts-de-France sites: Dunkirk/Loon-Plage (primary site; coordinates here), Bosquel, and Bouchain. At Bouchain, EDF selected SoftBank as preferred bidder (due diligence ongoing; preliminary construction lease, final lease pending regulatory approval) for a ~400 MW data center under a lease-to-build at the EDF Bouchain power-plant site (former coal unit; CCGT still operating). Status is announced/intent — not yet permitted or under construction.
Methodology prs-v0.1 · computed · trigger: manual
Each factor below contributed to the current score. Contributions are rubric weights from methodology prs-v0.1; every factor cites the record it is derived from.
|
Dimension
|
Factor
|
Contribution
|
Cites
|
Narrative
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Infrastructure | interconnection progress | +15 | Commissioning | Power/interconnection milestone "Commissioning" achieved — largest single health event (§B.2.3). |
| Capital | baseline | 40 | SoftBank France AI Data Center Program (Hauts-de-France) | No committed capital evidenced on any entity role — announcement-only anchor region (§B.2.4). |
| Regulatory | baseline | 70 | SoftBank France AI Data Center Program (Hauts-de-France) | No-adverse-evidence regulatory baseline (disclosed config, scoring.prs.baselines). |
| Infrastructure | baseline | 70 | SoftBank France AI Data Center Program (Hauts-de-France) | No-adverse-evidence infrastructure baseline (disclosed config, scoring.prs.baselines). |
| Regulatory | permit granted | +6 | Utility Approval | Permitting milestone "Utility Approval" achieved. |
| Schedule | baseline | 80 | SoftBank France AI Data Center Program (Hauts-de-France) | No-adverse-evidence schedule baseline (disclosed config, scoring.prs.baselines). |
| Schedule | milestone achieved | +5 | Announcement | Milestone "Announcement" achieved on/ahead of its first announced date. |
| Schedule | milestone achieved | +5 | Commissioning | Milestone "Commissioning" achieved on/ahead of its first announced date. |
| Schedule | milestone achieved | +5 | Utility Approval | Milestone "Utility Approval" achieved on/ahead of its first announced date. |
Announcement
Commissioning
Utility approval
No active constraint observations recorded against this project.
|
Entity
|
Role
|
Ownership
|
Committed capital
|
|---|---|---|---|
| SB Energy | — | — | |
| SoftBank Group | — | — | |
| SoftBank Group | — | — | |
| EDF | — | — | |
| Schneider Electric | — | — |
Every substantive field on this record is backed by a canonical claim from a cited source document, graded on the E1 (strongest) – E5 (weakest) evidence ladder.
group.softbank · May 31, 2026 · backs: capacity mw, status
https://group.softbank/en/news/press/20260531_0
Recent ingested source documents linked to this project via extracted claims or triage mentions, newest first.
· group.softbank · relevance 0.00
· www.edf.fr · relevance 0.90