(Bordeaux, France) – french officials are weighing the approval of a €3 billion “sovereign” supercomputer adn data storage project in Bordeaux, aimed at reducing reliance on American tech giants and bolstering european digital independence.
The project, dubbed BXIA, is slated to be built on a 20-hectare site and is intended to provide dedicated infrastructure for artificial intelligence, with a focus on attracting companies committed to data sovereignty. The bordeaux metropolitan area is deliberating on the land transfer this morning.
Project Scale: The BXIA data center will eventually house six units and require 380 megawatts of electricity, approximately 10% of the capacity of the nearby Blayais nuclear power plant. It is indeed expected to create several hundred jobs.
“rather then giving this power to an American operator who will do with it what it wants, we prefer (…) to create a sovereign digital center,” explained Benjamin Delaux, president of NFU Digital, a company associated with financier Osae Partners in the project.
BXIA aims to provide 250 megawatts of IT computing and storage power, with approximately 80% dedicated to artificial intelligence. Project leaders hope to attract companies like Mistral, a French AI firm, to the campus, seeking “future AI users committed to a sovereignty charter,” according to Delaux, who said he “opens his arms wide” to the company.Mistral declined to comment.
the project is seeking “capital mainly French and European” and is also targeting large industrial groups based in Bordeaux, including ArianeGroup, Dassault, Safran, and Thales, as potential investors. “We have space and defense companies… who need to protect and preserve their data,” said Christine Bost, president of Bordeaux Métropole.
According to 2019 figures from Oliver Wyman, 92% of Western data was stored in the United States. While Amazon Web Services (AWS) has launched a “sovereign and self-reliant cloud” service for the EU, Julien Anselme, president of the ENTER competitiveness cluster, argues that the U.S. Cloud Act of 2018 “gives legal control (to American authorities) over data stored in Europe in American companies.” “It’s a good step to have our data placed in Europe, but it is indeed not enough to guarantee their sovereignty,” Anselme added, stating that a sovereign data center is “an element of rebalancing in favor of Europe.”
Germany is also making significant investments in data sovereignty, with the Schwarz group (Lidl, Kaufland) launching an €11 billion mega-data center in November and SAP planning to invest €20 billion over ten years to strengthen its European cloud offering.
Strategic Location: The Bordeaux project is based on the connection in 2023 of the “Friendship” transatlantic internet cable on the Gironde coast.
France currently has around 300 data centers, primarily located in Hauts-de-France, around Paris, and Marseille, consuming an estimated 10,000 gigawatt hours of electricity annually, or about 2% of the country’s total consumption. The Bordeaux project aims to be environmentally conscious, with plans for land renaturation, closed-circuit water cooling, and heat injection into surrounding networks.
Local Debate: Bordeaux’s environmentalist mayor, Pierre Hurmic, supports the project, stating, “We need digital sovereignty, we need these kinds of tools. They will happen anyway, so we might as well accompany with rigor.” However, his support has been criticized as “treason” by opponents from La France Insoumise, who denounce BXIA as “a democratic and ecological aberration” due to its “colossal” electricity consumption and are calling for a moratorium.
Why It Matters
The BXIA project represents a growing trend among European nations to assert greater control over their digital infrastructure and data. This push for “digital sovereignty” is driven by concerns about data privacy, security, and the dominance of U.S. tech companies. The project’s success could serve as a model for other European countries seeking to reduce their reliance on foreign technology and foster a more independent digital ecosystem. The increasing investment in sovereign data centers signals a shift in the global balance of power in the tech sector, as nations prioritize control over their data and technological capabilities.
