Abu Dhabi’s MGX is doubling its investment in data centers in France, as the country emerges as the UAE’s top technology partner in the EU.

The joint venture of MGX, state-owned investment bank Bpifrance, chipmaker Nvidia, and France’s AI champion Mistral announced their Campus AI expansion on the sidelines of a Paris investment summit, with plans to build 3 gigawatts of compute capacity nationwide, bringing the total investment to €7.5 billion ($8.7 billion).

The ambitions are twofold: The planned data centers will rely on water-free cooling — a rarity in an otherwise water-intensive industry — and be powered by France’s nuclear-heavy electricity grid. That will make them a lower-carbon alternative to data centers elsewhere. The project will also help anchor tenant Mistral try to close the gap with US frontrunners like Anthropic and OpenAI.

Separately, G42’s infrastructure subsidiary Core42 said it plans to more than triple its computing capacity to 60 megawatts in Buffalo, New York, in a further sign of Abu Dhabi’s growing ambitions to be an AI player abroad, as much, if not more, than at home.