French President Emmanuel Macron has hailed a deal that will expand a UAE-backed artificial intelligence campus in France.
Abu Dhabi-based MGX, along with France's Mistral and Bpifrance, were part of the signing ceremony sealing the deal at the Choose France Summit in Paris on Monday.
"MGX chooses France," Mr Macron said in a post on X, which was accompanied by a video of the signing ceremony showing the French President and MGX vice chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak.
Mr Al Mubarak is also managing director and group chief executive of Mubadala, in addition to being a member of the Abu Dhabi Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Technology Council.
Last year, MGX and Nvidia announced plans to help build the largest AI campus in Europe alongside French companies.
The campus, which will be built near Paris, was initially expected to reach a capacity of 1.4 gigawatts.
Monday's deal, however, now means that the AI Campus might eventually offer "3GW of compute capacity nationwide", a statement read.
It said that a coming section of a second AI campus site "doubles the initial investment by the consortium and its partners, and is the natural next step in the development of a leading pan European network of AI factories, extending the program beyond the flagship Fouju campus in Seine-et-Marne".
Current plans promote the AI campus's "water-free cooling with an energy efficient design", addressing increasing concern about the environmental impacts related to data centres and AI around the world.
"This is the partnership France and the UAE set out to build, and the test we hold ourselves to is simple: every gigawatt should compound value in France, not simply flow through it," said Campus AI president Thibaud Desfosses.
MGX also praised the signing ceremony fortifying the planned expansion of Campus AI.
In a social media post, the Abu Dhabi-based company said the deal marked "an important step in strengthening France’s AI infrastructure and supporting the growth of a competitive European AI ecosystem".
