Ten Years of Finnish Investment in France: 2015–2025

2015–2025: steady project flow in selective sectors

Between 2015 and 2025, France recorded 80 Finnish investment projects (about 8 projects per year on average), representing around 2,400 jobs created or maintained. Recent years confirm this stability: 2024 recorded 8 projects (152 jobs) and 2025 recorded 7 projects (80 jobs).

While the number of projects has remained broadly stable since the Covid period, job creation has tended to decrease. This downturn is due to fewer large industrial sites or major expansions. In the past, larger Finnish corporates significantly boosted job creation. Today, they are increasingly replaced by smaller, higher value-added projects, aligned with France 2030 priorities in digital, deep tech (including AI), and healthtech.

Industrial footprint in France: KONE, Nokia and Ahlstrom at the core

Finland’s corporate footprint in France has become more concentrated over time: Finnish affiliates employed around 12 0000 people in France in 2024, compared to more than 16 000 ten years earlier. This is largely due to restructuring and portfolio shifts in traditional industrial segments such as paper and wood, metallurgy and telecoms.

Yet, Finland continues to rely on long-standing anchors that underpin durable industrial and technological ties. KONE remains a major employer with more than 3 000 employees in France in 2025 and its footprint could grow further as the company moves toward a planned combination with TK Elevator valued at €29.4 billion.[1] Nokia remains a significant Finnish player in France in advanced telecom and security-related activities, with around 2,300 at the end of 2025. Ahlstrom maintains an industrial footprint of roughly 1,000 employees in France, while adapting to changing markets.

Technology-led investments: where Finland and France connect best

Among the Nordics, Finnish investors stand out for a tech first, high value added approach, and over the past five years they have increasingly used France as a base to build capabilities in AI, Quantum and digital health. IQM has been a spearhead of this shift, following its Choose France 2024 announcement to build a quantum processor fabrication facility in France, a first in Europe.[2] Recent examples also include Aiforia, which launched a France-based initiative in AI for medical imaging [3], and Gosta Labs, which set up a French subsidiary in Paris to deploy its oncology-focused AI platform and partner with French hospitals and cancer centres to advance AI in cancer care.[4]

This profile is reinforced by France’s ecosystem dynamics. More than €2.5 billion has been invested in AI research and technology since 2018, and France now hosts over 1,000 AI startups, which raised €1.9 billion in AI funding in 2024. France also trains over 40,000 AI students and professionals each year, with the ambition to reach 100,000 trained annually in the coming years. A key signal for Finnish companies scaling engineering and R&D teams. [5]

Finland’s Next Chapter in France: A Deepening Alliance in Deep Tech and AI

The past decade shows that Finland’s investment relationship with France is less about volume and more about strategic positioning in future-oriented sectors like AI, where France has become the leading European destination for foreign projects. This corporate momentum is anchored by a progressive, highly operational alliance rather than a single flagship treaty. First structured by the 2018 Joint Declaration on AI Cooperation, the relationship has been sustained by key academic milestones, such as the 2020 scientific agreement between DATAIA (the French AI Convergence Institute) and FCAI (the Finnish Center for Artificial Intelligence) [6]. This partnership creates a direct bridge between researchers to accelerate fundamental breakthroughs, complemented by joint R&D funding schemes co-managed by Bpifrance and Business Finland.

Today, these bilateral ties are amplified by broader European frameworks. As active members of the 2025 “Current AI” initiative, both Finland and France pool resources to develop secure and practical solutions for key industries [7]. Backed by France’s expanding computing capacity and an ecosystem of over 1,000 startups, Finnish businesses find the ideal environment to scale operations into long-term investments.

Business France stands ready to support your expansion at every stage of the journey, regardless of project size or ambition. Reach out to our teams!

Written by Paul AUZELOUX.

Data are drawn from Business France Nordics’ records of investment projects and associated jobs since 1993.

• [1] KONE and TKE to combine, creating a world-class company in the elevator and escalator industry
• [2] IQM Quantum Computers announces plans to build a fabrication facility in France
• [3] Aiforia establishes a subsidiary in France to strengthen its position in the European market
• [4] Gosta Labs expands its operations to France to advance AI in cancer care
• [5] Make France an AI Powerhouse
• [6] Strategic cooperation agreement between the DATAIA Institute and the Finnish Center for Artificial Intelligence
• [7] « Current AI »: New partnership to promote AI for the general interest