France's ambition to compete in the global rush to build artifical intelligence data centres is dividing a small village outside Paris, where a massive planned facility stokes both hope for an economic dividend and fears of disruption.
Lying between the capital and the ancient royal palace at Fontainebleau, Fouju is a community of just 650 people.
But it is set to host a €50-billion "AI Campus" project, announced to great fanfare at a summit of government and tech leaders in the French capital early last year.
President Emmanuel Macron vaunted France's reliable nuclear power and available land for construction as he welcomed leaders to the event.
Emirati investment fund MGX, France's state investment bank, AI startup Mistral and American chipbuilder Nvidia are funding the Fouju development, whose website says it will "host next-generation computing infrastructure... for companies specialising in new technologies and developing AI".
