At VivaTech's tenth edition, the question was no longer whether AI reshapes the physical world, but how nations can secure the infrastructure that powers it. Envision's Mission Gobi offers Europe one answer: build AI where renewable energy is abundant, rather than concentrating demand where people already compete for power.
When Emmanuel Macron and Narendra Modi shared the stage at VivaTech this year, the discussion moved past product demos to something more structural: who can secure the infrastructure, data, cloud and energy on which all AI now runs. For Europe, the question lands hard. The continent's power grids average around 50 years of age, and AI's appetite for electricity is colliding with that ageing infrastructure in real time.
The strain is already visible. As data-centre demand climbs, the cost of grid upgrades increasingly lands on household bills, and local opposition to new builds is spreading. The IEA estimates data centres took around 1.5 per cent of global electricity in 2024, rising toward 3 per cent by 2030, with AI demand tripling over the period. Modest in aggregate, but in hubs such as Dublin and Frankfurt the local share is already far higher, and that is where the politics bites.
