From Macron to Modi, governments are rolling out the red carpet for AI giants
Countries are scrambling to avoid falling behind on artificial intelligence, and French President Emmanuel Macron and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi are leading personal charm offensives against tech CEOs.
The duo has stepped up their moves against the leaders of the world’s largest technology companies this year to secure investments and major AI infrastructure projects.
They stand out among countries striving to develop the data centers and ecosystems needed to power technology for the use of personal relationships.
French President hosts and personally persuades AI bosses at G7 summit in June SoftBank boss Masayoshi Son will invest tens of billions of dollars in artificial intelligence data centers in the country.
met with Modi Amazon’s CEO Andy Jassy said last Thursday that the US technology giantRecord investment of 48 billion dollars“in the country, $21 billion will be allocated to artificial intelligence and cloud infrastructure.
Modi met last year Microsoft chairman and CEO Satya Nadella, Google CEO Sundar Pichai And CEO of Intel Lip-Bu Tan are all committed to helping develop India’s AI ecosystem.
Macron hosted artificial intelligence leaders
In May, SoftBank announced plans to build 3.1 GW of AI data centers in France by 2031. €75bn program to roll out 5GW of AI data center capacity.
Son said in an interview with CNBC that Macron asked for a meeting with SoftBank’s Son two months ago to persuade him to join the project, and the two exchanged messages discussing the details.
Macron praised France’s energy capacity (the country gets most of its electricity from nuclear) and added that SoftBank was committed to securing 3GW of its projects, rather than the 2GW the French prime minister first suggested.
“His team, his government team, are very supportive,” Son said. “His team and our team work very well together.”
Around the same time, Macron approached tech moguls about attending a working lunch with world leaders, including US President Donald Trump, at the G7 conference hosted by France in June.
CEOs, including OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis all participated.
Other tech chiefs were also there, including France-based Mistral CEO Arthur Mensch, Canada’s Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez, Italian company Domyn’s Uljan Sharka, UK’s Victor Riparbelli of AI scaling Synthesia, and Germany-based Black Forest Labs’ Robin Rombach.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (C) takes a group photo with AI company leaders including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman (2nd L), Anthropik CEO Dario Amodei (L), Google CEO Sundar Pichai (2nd L) and Meta AI Director Alexandr Wang (L) at the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi on February 19, 2026.
Ludovic Marin | Afp | Getty Images
India
Modi also hosted top US technology leaders at the Global Artificial Intelligence summit in India earlier this year. Hundreds of billions of dollars have been committed to India’s AI efforts.
“India does not see fear in artificial intelligence. India sees chance in artificial intelligence. India sees the future in artificial intelligence,” Modi said in his opening speech at the summit in February. Call to global technology leaders “Design and Develop in India” to deliver to the world.
Securing investments and partnerships to develop artificial intelligence has been one of Modi’s top priorities. India does not yet produce cutting-edge chips domestically and does not have a frontier-scale baseline model on par with leading US or Chinese models, so it is seen as a laggard in the AI race.
The Prime Minister is encouraging global technology companies to invest in the development of artificial intelligence infrastructure and chips in the country.
Months before the summit, India secured Microsoft’s Largest investment in Asia to help build the sovereign capabilities needed for India’s AI-first future; Google announced that the company will invest $15 billion in India to build the largest artificial intelligence center in the world outside the United States. To encourage hyperscalers to set up AI data centers in India, the Modi government has offered them long-term tax breaks.
It is also encouraging local companies to develop semiconductors in the country.
Dutch company during Modi’s visit to the Netherlands in May ASML says it will provide improved supply Lithography tools and solutions for the 300mm semiconductor fab built by Indian company Tata Electronics. Intel’s Lip-Bu Tan, who met Modi last December, has also signed up as a potential buyer for chips manufactured by Tata Electronics.
India relies heavily on foreign AI models and computing hardware, making its AI targets vulnerable to other countries’ export control directives.
The recent rally in global AI stocks has completely bypassed India due to the lack of any large-scale AI plays, making Modi’s urgency to attract capital and technology clear and even more important.
