PARIS, May 30 (Reuters) - Japan's SoftBank Group will invest €45 billion over the next five years in a push to ‌build up artificial intelligence infrastructure in France, the company ‌announced on Saturday.

SoftBank said the investment, described as the biggest of its kind ​so far in Europe, would be made in the northern Hauts-de-France region and deliver 3.1 GW of capacity.

The investment plans are due to be formally announced on Monday at the annual Choose France ‌business conference.

French engineering ⁠company Schneider Electric said it would be one of the project's key partners and equip the sites with ⁠its modules without disclosing financials.

Three sites, including one in Dunkirk, are expected to come into operation by 2031.

Additional sites spread across France ​are planned ​further down the road, SoftBank ​said, pushing the overall planned ‌investment sum to €75 billion.

"The fact that the country is a producer and exporter of energy is absolutely decisive for investments in AI infrastructure," SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son told the paper La Tribune du Dimanche.

State-owned nuclear energy giant EDF is also part of ‌the deal, handing one of its ​former power plants over to SoftBank to ​transform the site into ​a data centre.

The French commitment adds to a ‌global AI infrastructure spending spree by ​SoftBank. Its investments ​in AI also include over $30 billion invested in OpenAI so far, for about an 11% stake.

France has been using ​the Choose France ‌summit to court foreign investors since it was launched by ​President Emmanuel Macron in 2018.

(reporting by Tassilo HummelEditing by ​Tomasz Janowski and Franklin Paul)