From Macron to Modi, governments are rolling out the red carpet for AI giants

Countries are scrambling to now not descend on the assist of in AI — and French President Emmanuel Macron and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi are leading a private charm offensives to court tech CEOs.

The pair have confidence ramped up strikes to court leaders of the world’s largest tech corporations this twelve months, as they study to exact investment and most vital AI infrastructure initiatives.

They stand out amongst the countries scrambling to construct the guidelines centers and ecosystems wanted to energy the tech, for their use of non-public relationships.

The French President hosted AI bosses on the G7 summit in June, and individually convinced SoftBank boss Masayoshi Son to invest tens of billions of bucks into AI data centers within the country.

Modi met with Amazon’s CEO Andy Jassy final Thursday, and welcomed the U.S. tech huge’s “myth $Forty eight billion investment” within the country, of which $21 billion will be for AI and cloud infrastructure.

Modi final twelve months met Microsoft chair and CEO Satya Nadella, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Intel’s CEO Lip-Bu Tan, with all of them committing to assist construct India’s AI ecosystem.

In Could presumably well also merely, SoftBank launched plans to produce 3.1 GW of AI data centers in France by 2031, as share of a 75-billion-euro program to roll out 5 GW of AI data heart capability.

Macron requested a assembly with SoftBank’s Son to persuade him to come to a decision to the challenge two months earlier, and the two exchanged texts as they hashed out the vital sides, Son told CNBC in an interview.

Macron touted France’s energy capability — the country gets a colossal amount of its electrical energy from nuclear — and committed to securing the SoftBank initiatives 3GW in its build of 2GW, the number the French premier first truly helpful, he added.

“His crew, the authorities crew is terribly supportive,” Son acknowledged. “His crew and our crew work in collaboration very well.”

Around the identical time, Macron approached tech bosses to be a a part of a working lunch with world leaders, collectively with U.S. President Donald Trump, on the G7 convention in June, which France used to be web hosting.

CEOs collectively with OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis all took share.

Other tech chiefs collectively with France-essentially based mostly Mistral CEO Arthur Mensch, Canada’s Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez, Italian firm Domyn’s Uljan Sharka, U.Okay. AI scaleup Synthesia’s Victor Riparbelli and German-essentially based mostly Black Forest Labs’ Robin Rombach have confidence been additionally there.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi (C) takes a gaggle portray with AI firm leaders collectively with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman (2nd R), Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei (R), Google CEO Sundar Pichai (2nd L), and Meta Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang (L), on the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi on February 19, 2026.

Ludovic Marin | Afp | Getty Shots

Modi too hosted high U.S. tech leaders earlier this twelve months on the World AI summit in India, ensuing in commitments of hundreds of billions of bucks into Indian AI efforts.

“India would now not thought ache in AI. India sees fortune in AI. India sees the future in AI,” Modi acknowledged in his opening remarks on the summit in February, urging global tech leaders to “Originate and Manufacture in India” to converse to the world.

Securing investments and partnerships for rising AI has been a high priority for Modi. India would now not yet originate cutting-edge chips domestically, nor does it have confidence a frontier-scale foundation model on a par with leading U.S. or Chinese objects, so it is widely considered as a laggard within the AI creep.

The high minister has been encouraging global tech corporations to put money into rising AI infrastructure and chips within the country.

Months sooner than the summit, India secured Microsoft’s largest investment in Asia to assist produce the sovereign capabilities wanted for India’s AI-first future, while Google launched an investment of $15 billion in India to produce the agency’s largest AI hub on the earth originate air of the U.S. To help hyperscalers to produce AI data centers in India, Modi’s authorities has equipped long‑time interval tax breaks to them.

It is additionally encouraging native corporations to construct semiconductors within the country.

For the length of Modi’s lumber to to the Netherlands in Could presumably well also merely, Dutch agency ASML acknowledged it would provide progressed lithography tools and solutions for the 300mm semiconductor fab being recount up by Indian agency Tata Electronics. Intel’s Lip-Bu Tan, who met Modi final December, additionally signed up as a prospective buyer for chips made by Tata Electronics.

India depends intently on foreign AI objects and computing hardware, which makes its AI ambitions at risk of export defend an eye fixed on directives of different countries.

The most modern global AI stocks rally has entirely skipped India ensuing from the dearth of any colossal-scale AI play, making Modi’s urgency to attract capital and technology evident and the total more vital.