French President Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech during the plenary session of the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit at the Grand Palais in Paris, France, on Feb. 11, 2025.
France has real AI ambitions — and nuclear energy might be the key to unlocking them. Ahead of the AI Action Summit, which kicked off on Monday at the Grand Palais in Paris, the French government announced $113 billion in new investments in artificial intelligence at the summit, investments that will be powered by 1 gigawatt of dedicated nuclear power.
The initiative, spearheaded by the British data center company FluidStack, will begin construction in the third quarter of 2025. It seeks to achieve a similar scale to Stargate, the US government-backed project to expand the data center capacity of industry leader OpenAI.
The Wall Street Journal reports that France has 57 nuclear reactors at 18 separate plants, generating two-thirds of its national energy supply from nuclear, a clean energy source. Additionally, it had surplus energy last year, which it exported.Ever since Donald Trump returned to office last year, governments have been hedging bets on the future of American power and what it might mean for them.
Microsoft is advancing its efforts to eliminate single-use plastics across its global packaging portfolio through material innovation and design changes across products like Surface and Xbox. By rethinking how packaging works—from cushioning to coatings and structural components—the company is reducing waste and demonstrating how design decisions at scale can deliver meaningful sustainability impact. Last week, Microsoft marked a key milestone in reducing single-use plastic in its packaging to just 0.07%, reflecting significant progress toward its broader commitment to become a zero-waste company by 2030. Read the full story here.
In this “ask ian,” Ian Bremmer says the United Arab Emirates’ decision to withdraw from OPEC reflects a broader erosion of trust in longstanding institutions amid growing regional instability.