Veolia Environnement SA ($VIE)

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to this THEMA dedicated to innovation for Environmental Security. And thank you for joining us remotely through the live stream or right here in this amazing space in the Outernet in London. We are together for 2 hours to explore Veolia's historic commitment and continuing investment in innovation with a purpose to secure critical resources for communities, for cities, for industries to future-proof the business, as you'll see. And we'll also hear how this is benefiting partners and clients. The agenda very quickly. First, group CEO, Estelle Brachlianoff will take the followed by Deputy CEO in charge of Finance, Emmanuelle Menning, then we'll have a roundtable with senior leaders across Veolia's Water, Digital and Growth activities, alongside a senior representative for AWS to bring us a client perspective. And finally, of course, we are going to open to the room to all of you following online for a Q&A session with all the speakers. Now before we begin, just a quick note for those of you who are here in person. As usual, we have given you some booklets with all the slides and all the key figures, so you can refresh your memory after the presentation. I'd like to warmly encourage you to keep those booklets, but after the presentation and to take a full advantage of the immersive experience that we have created for you here today. That's it. Let's get started. [Presentation]

Please welcome Veolia's CEO, Estelle Brachlianoff.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Outernet. Just look around you. This is a place which was built in March 2020 during London lock down. Right here at the heart of the city. Some dare to ask, what if people came back for something bolder, a place that's open, alive, deeply human, a place that constantly reinvents itself. And that same question has driven us for 170 years. What if we could secure water from diseases, to waste into new resources not only capture CO2, but also reuse it. Every what if became a solution. And every solution, a proprietary technology or know-how. So we're not just an environmental services company, we are the innovation powerhouse for critical needs. The R&D engine for the individual systems that keep stabilization running. While some innovator needs you didn't know you had. We innovate to secure what communities cannot live without. Water, energy, critical minerals, the resources essential for prosperity, health and well-being. When we planned this event, we knew the world was changing, but it's fair to say we didn't know how fast. And before I go any further, I need to pause, because what I have to describe isn't theoretical. Our people are living this reality every single day. In Africa, in Ukraine. In the Middle East, we're up to 95% of water depends on desalination plants, in every conflict zone. Keeping entire communities alive with water, sanitation and energy. That work reminds us every day that environmental security is not a concept, it is a reality. And what's happening is part of something bigger. A full geopolitical and technicological reset. Water has erupted as a center of conflict in the Middle East as strategic as oil, if not more. Energy is weaponized through the Strait of Hormuz. China has restricted export of rarer minerals, essential for batteries, electronics, different systems. Climate change accelerates drug floods, more extreme events. New contaminants, 9 million people die annually from pollution. But everything is connected. Resources are no longer given. They have become a competitive advantage. A matter of independence, geopolitical power and ultimately, a condition for life itself and prosperity of communities. This is environmental security. Securing available, affordable, reliable resources, inventing proprietary solutions for critical needs, delivering competitiveness for industries, resilient cities, healthy communities. And our solution address those 3 critical challenges: securing our critical resources starting with water, circular economy, finding local resources into waste reducing, therefore, dependency on distant supply chains. [indiscernible] Treatments, protecting health and securing license to operate. Innovation has been in our DNA for 170 years, but science and challenge evolve and we evolve with them. Picture this, Paris 1853. Colera has devastated the city a few years before, thousands died and the risk remains. Engineers were challenged by contaminated water infecting resources, and they asked, what if we connect it to people only clean water sources. They created the company General [indiscernible] To pump and deliver clean water, eradicating the epidemic. And since then, we've never stopped onspating. We find solutions, then we keep searching for the next frontier. Take plastics, almost 10 years to master food-grade recycling have the highest quality. The new frontier, wind turbine blades, solar panels, new high-performance recycled compounds. Water pollution, we started by treating biological contamination then. Over the last decade, we learned to treat PFAS, microplastics. The new frontier, pesticide metabolites. Energy. We know how to reduce consumption for industries and buildings. The new frontier capturing, but also utilizing CO2. A true environmental security powerhouse, the world's leading innovation force for critical needs. Today, Veolia operates in 44 countries across 5 continents. And that global footprint, it's about learning and scaling up. Every challenge we face in one place teaches us something we applies everywhere else. Take PFAS. Australia, early 2000s, near military bases, we started developing solutions. Then the U.S. regulated PFAS, we were ready. And now we are scaling up. Now Europe is waking up. And once again, we are ready. We don't wait for problems to occur. When a problem occurs, there is a good chance we've already sold them somewhere else. But here is something else that makes us unique. Over 170 years, we've captured know-how embedded in data. And today, this data is the next generation of resources almost as precious as the natural resources we manage. This is quality data, long-term data. real operation data from tens of thousands of sites operated in 44 countries across decades. So when a new crisis hit, we don't start from zero. We have the records and the pattern which help us learn quick and find the right solutions. That's a key strategic advantage. And this has allowed us to develop world first. Barcelona, we're using coal from LNG terminals to power industrial freezers. Australia, resecting water almost infinitely for lithium mine, enabling them to double its capacity. In Japan, recovering lithium residues from battery factories. Oman, the world first desalination plant powered entirely by renewable energy, or the Pudong district in Shanghai, China, the largest water PPP featuring AI that allows plants to self-optimize in real time. Or [indiscernible] In the U.S. a high-temperature insulation destroying up to 99.9999% of PFAS. We are not just operators, we are the innovation lab for essential services. And this environmental security powerhouse rest on 3 goals. Three outcomes we target when we innovate. First, keep essential services running, no matter what. Second, protecting health. And third, securing industries license to operate. And we apply this innovation firepower across our entire portfolio. In our boosters, what the technologies has this waste bioenergy, we push the frontier with perfect emerging technologies developed tomorrow's offer, but also in our strongholds, what the operations so it was districating because innovation is what keeps us competitive. It's what makes our service more resilient, more efficient, more affordable. And both fuel growth through revenue for today and tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, through efficiency and competitiveness. So, how do we do all this? How do we stay ahead? It starts with scale. Sorry, I was dragged a little bit into this [indiscernible] . We have always a small vibration when I see this. We are a Fortune 500 company with global reach. That scale allows us to invest in R&D, in patents in pilots in attracting the best experts from around the world of partnering with local ecosystem and universities, investing in startups. During our GreenUp plan, we will have dedicated EUR 1 billion to innovation. It is a significant step up to drive growth today and build it for tomorrow. Our portfolio has grown to over 4,600 patents, positioning us as a European leader in patent registration for Water Technology alone, for instance. We have 26 research and innovation labs on 5 continents, and we will soon open a new lab in Singapore dedicated to ultrapure water for the semiconductor industry. This makes us the world's largest private R&D force for environmental security technologies. Scale gives us rich, but our decentralized model when it comes to delivery, allows us customer proximity and gives us impact. We operate close to the ground, close to local innovation hubs, which helps us adapt our solution fast. Add to that, our unique ability to combine water, energy, waste, creating proprietary solutions no one else can replicate. Global scale, local routes, unique combination, that is our winning formula. At Veolia, every innovation delivers real impact and the potential is just massive. What if we deployed all the solution already invented at the larger scale. We could save 34 billion cubic meters of freshwater. London water for 200 years. At European scale, we could recover 4 million tons of critical materials that is 25% of Europe's needs secured locally. We could unlock 400 gigawatt of unused local energy. A country of 50 million inhabitants powered sustainably and avoiding imports. We could help prevent part of the 9 million deaths from pollution worldwide. So for the future, let's scale up for the maximum impact. You hear it everywhere, the AI industry's revolution. Data centers and Microchip's factories rising across continent at double-digit growth rates, new possibilities and very soon a matter of strategic sovereignty for nations worldwide. But alongside the excitement, rising fear and resistance because this technological breakthrough rest on something fundamental, resources, water, energy, critical minerals, but also land. And these communities where those facilities are built in a world where resources are really scarce, they're starting to see them as a threat. Competition for water, strength on energy grids. And we are seeing the consequences. In 2025 alone, $156 billion worth of data centers project was stopped in the United States. And we are seeing the same pattern emerging in Europe, permit refusals, moratoriums. This revolution is part of our reality today and for the years to come. And at Veolia, we have the capacity to help do it better. The key is to help the AI and [indiscernible] Supply chain completely rethink of redesign how they use resources. And the good news is we already have many solutions they need. For data centers and chip factories, our innovation gives us 3 unique capabilities. Unique proprietary technologies from water tech, like the capacity to produce ultra-pure water, the chip manufacturers. Chips are currently 50,000x smaller than a human hair. You can, therefore, imagine in that case, what ultrapure means, it's at the molecular level. An installed asset from Hazardous Waste space, like high temperature incinerator operating at industrial case at more than 1,100 degrees Celsius. But also the capacity to bridge with local communities. For water access, and recovering waste heat to provide heating to communities. And I must say, I'm super happy to announce that today, we are launching our new offer. Data Center Resource 360. The turnkey solution that can transform data centers from resource consumers into potential resource contributors. Tech Energy. Every data center generates massive amount of heat. Most of it is wasted. Thanks to our solution, we capture it and turn it to heating for entire neighborhoods, up to 20% energy reuse efficiency, moving therefore towards carbon-neutral operations. Take the cooling water. Instead of just consuming it, we treat it, reuse it and replanate it and can reduce water footprint by up to 75%. Tech Waste, electronic waste, cooling chemicals. We're recovering up to 95% of it, turn it back into new resources. This isn't just 3 separate contracts. It's one integrated system across all our businesses working together to make data centers more sustainable. And what really makes it work is that it's designed to earn the license to operate from the communities that host these facilities. And today, I'm excited to announce that we've signed a very promising partnership with the data center developer SDC. And this is just the beginning. We are also developing initiatives with all the major hyperscalers, including AWS, and Will Hughes will share more about our collaboration in the panel discussion shortly. But in the meantime, here is Data Center Resource 360 in a nutshell. [Presentation]

Now let's move to semiconductors because if data centers are demanding, chips manufacturing, I must say, is on another level. A single large fab uses 20 million to 38 million liters of water per day. Chemicals, 30,000 to 50,000 tons per year, and the industry is growing at more than 20% annually. We are accelerating development with Micron, TSMC, Intel, our global clients through Water Technologies and Hazardous Waste. Take Micron in Boise, Idaho. We use our regulated municipal water expertise to secure water access with the city, then deployed water tech for ultrapure water and has this waste for chemical management. This is typical of the Veolia's winning formula. And once again, we anticipated and are investing Arizona 2025 tuck-in acquisition for sulphuric acid reuse. Taiwan and the U.K. new sovereign regeneration pumps commissioning now. Our incoming Clean Earth acquisition, which will give us reach across all 50 states in the U.S., including a stronger presence in the western part of the country. [indiscernible] a 30% stake in this Taiwan pioneer with a game-changing technology that regenerates [indiscernible] to ultra-high purity for 2 to 3 nanometers chips. Singapore 2027, our first Clean Room opening with our Electro ionization technology, filtering to less than [ 1 per trillion ] sodium irons. And just last week, a new partnership I'm very proud of with the [indiscernible] founded by researchers who won the Nobel price last year, an advanced treatment technology that will be defined what's possible. In 2022, our revenue coming from AI industries, data centers and chip factories were EUR 410 million. Today in '25, we reached EUR 560 million. And by 2030, we are targeting EUR 1 billion. That's doubling our business. our innovations, unique offers and investment underway give me real confidence about reaching this ambitious target in one of the most critical sectors today. Now we've talked about water and energy. But this evolution also depends on another resource battle, which is critical minerals. The [ deal partial ] reality is stock. Congo controls 64% of Cobalt. Chile, 44% of lithium. And China dominates with 70% of all critical minerals refining. Meanwhile, Europe produces less than 10% of its copper and 1% of its lithium. And this is where circular economy and recycling becomes strategic factors of autonomy, independence and sovereignty. At European scale, that can secure locally 25% of Europe's needs. How do we do? Has this waste recycling plant near [indiscernible] France uses a hydrometallurgic technology to extract lithium, cobalt, nickel, copper, from used electric batteries at 99% purity level, turning waste into a strategic resource. For plastic, we've pioneered PET food grade recycling since 2005, even more difficult. This year, we're operating a closed-loop trade-to trap facility in the U.K. Every plastic package you see in the supermarkets. And with Plastilope, we create unique plastic recipes for any industrial needs. It could be car bumpers, vacuum cleaners, dashboard component packaging, 75% less CO2 than virgin plastic. This is [indiscernible] At industrial scale, turning dependency into autonomous. So when you look at who we are partnering with, Macron, TSMC, SKI nix, Intel, SDC, AWS, Samsung, STMicroelectronics. These are the companies building the AI revolution and they're choosing Veolia, because we're not just a supplier but also a partner, a partner that transform resource challenges into opportunities, a partner that owns communities resistance into acceptance because the future of AI industries depends on environmental security. And you will see how we are approaching this from both sides, serving AI industry while also using it to make our own services more efficient and sustainable. And Emmanuelle will elaborate about that. Emmanuel, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Estelle, and good morning, everyone. You've just seen the innovation that opened new markets. Well, first, technologies we have invested in build over the past years to enter our most critical need of our clients. But as Estelle start to explain, innovation at Veolia does not stop there. there is another kind, one that's just as critical, one that make essential services better, smarter, more efficient every single day. Think about it. This morning, you turn on your tap water flowed, and you didn't think twice about it. But behind that simple gesture, there are decades and decades of innovation. Since [indiscernible] Monitoring quality in real time, AI optimizing treatment processes, network design to never fail. And technology making water affordable for millions of people. That's the innovation I want to talk about today, the kind that helps us give 110 million people supplied with water, that hit 7 million [indiscernible] , and that it weighs for entire cities. Inventing new market matters, but perfecting what we already do, that's what keep societies running, what make essential services affordable, and that's what drives growth in our core operations. So 3 imperatives: business continuity, essential services that never fail. Second, health protection from people can't see and competitive business, differentiating solution at scale affordable for everyone. Business continuity. So I will start with water. Water security is becoming the defining challenge of our time. Today, 3 billion people live in a rear-facing water stress. By 2050, this could reach 5 billion. So it's not a future stress. It's already happening. So we have invested and innovated to secure water with multiple upshot, reducing leaks, reusing wastewater, making desalination affordable, reducing leaks. In the U.S., water [indiscernible] Up to 50% to leaks. We are bringing that down to 10% using sensor and AI that it treat leaks in real time and prioritize repair for maximum impact. Reusing waste water, over 2,000 references worldwide with a portfolio of proprietary technology that help recycle waste water to drinking quality in Namibia, in France, in Spain and each tailored to local needs and regulations. Making desalination affordable, we have cut consumption by 80%. Making seawater drinkable for more or less than $0.50 per cubic meters. All proprietary solutions that give us a decisive competitive edge but continuity also means resilient crisis. So we have built the capacity to respond fast. We operate the world's largest fleet of mobile treatment units across EMEA and the U.S., more than 2,000 units ready to answer in a few hours, all urgent situations. Water reuse, desalination for treatment, and we are the world leader of mobile water solution with revenue around EUR 500 million, an average EBITDA of 25%, and we expect that business to grow around 10% per year on average. So we are not just operating infrastructure. We are securing it. Which bring me to our second imperative because continuity mean nothing if the water flowing isn't safe to drink, has protections. Across every country, every political fraction, every social class, 97% of the people put health first. It's the 1 thing that everyone agrees on. Back in the 19th century, it's been decontaminating water from bacteria. Today, it's mean removing the smallest and the most toxic contaminant like PFAS. PFAS, it's a great example, how an innovation goes from R&D lab to a package offer to profitable growth for the group. And it follows the typical [indiscernible], anticipate, find solutions, deploy at the lowest cost for everyone and combine our businesses using our global presence to scale. Today, what make BeyondPFAS absolutely unique is that it's a complete hand-to-hand solution. Mobile aforesurement, extraction and removal technology for concentration and 99.99% destruction at 1,150 degrees approved by EPA and the Pentagon regulators. So we combine water operation, Water Technologies and Hazardous Waste. 3 businesses and one integrated solution. Nobody else can do this. And there are new developments. Last week, we partnered with [indiscernible] to go one step further on ultra [indiscernible]. At the end, the results speak for themselves, 25% growth in 2025. We are targeting EUR 1 billion in 2030 through acquisition like Clean Earth in the U.S. [indiscernible] Pacific in Australia, plus growth driven by supportive regulation in the U.S., in Europe, in Australia. So what is ahead of us? On the [indiscernible] Disruptors, we have already done full-scale test on site. Microplate demonstrate 99.9% microplastic elimination in wastewater, thanks to partnership with Albert University and [indiscernible] . So each generation of contaminants gets smaller, it's harder to detect, harder to treat. And each time the technology become more sophisticated, more proprietary depending our competitive edge. But sophisticated technology mean nothing if it's too expensive to run, which brings me to our third imperative competitiveness. AI and digital innovation will be the cornerstone of our next efficiency plan. About our approach to digital is global. Shared across all functional and operational directions with the strong involvement of HR to ensure that everyone benefits from AI. First, our employees everything starts with them at every level of the company, we bring them along empowering and upscaling them. Secondly, our assets. What efficiency is being enhanced by new digital solutions. And then third, our customers. They benefit from a new range of services as well as affordable tariffs. And we are already seeing the impact. The digital share of efficiency rose from 10% of operational gains in 2023 to 23% in 2025. Water contributed the most. It represents more than 50% efficiency gains, digitalization of meters boosted by AI, increased bills collection and reduce network [indiscernible] . Energy contributes to more than 25%. In Waste business, our in-house software optimized waste collection routes and increase her detections. So at Veolia, we have not waited for Generic to start the digital transformation of our operation. For more than 20 years, we have worked successfully at scaling up our asset efficiencies through digital improvement. Let me give you one concrete example. In China, Shanghai Pudong, our advanced algorithm can anticipate consumption several days a week ahead enabling optimized pumping and energy consumption as well as world-class network efficiency. But as you can guess, it does not stop there. So let me tell you about the transformation going on at Veolia, leveraging the power of Gen AI to become the first player to revolutionize resource efficiency management. As mentioned, the involvement of all Veolia employees here at the center of our digital transformation. We are bringing them on board. Our internal platform, the Veolia SecureGPT, is the first Gen AI corporate platform in France and already reached 90,000 daily users. We have already over 2,000 in-house agents to optimize functional processes, payroll, accounting, billings, but the highest potential lies in the deep transformation of our operational processes. The way we manage our plant, our fleet, our maintenance, the way we sell our electricity or heat our recyclates. So how will we manage that? Gen AI is fed with data. We have, by far, the largest available data bank of all the businesses we operate. This make already Veolia unique. Now imagine Gen AI powered by the largest environmental data bank, analyzing all the inputs and output parameters of our plants communicating in a natural language with on-site technicians suggesting in real-time optimization to drive them to their peak performance. So it's the alliance of AI-boosted algorithm with on-site experience workers. What I just described, this is [indiscernible]. 9 use cases of [indiscernible] Plants are already being developed with very strong proof of value for each of them. For example, to increase energy generation at our waste-to-energy plants in water, optimize maintenance programs for predictive and we are targeting 30% of our plant maintenance technician equipped within 2 years. Early results are promising saving finding sources of breakdown, higher availability rate, more water delivered. Ultimately, digital, AI, robotics at Veolia are already an operational reality. And it will be even more so tomorrow. We have a major ambition by 2030, delivering 50% of our operational efficiency through AI and digital solutions. We optimize our operation and secure for the year to come a long-lasting business model that deliver value through efficiency for our clients, our shareholders and the planet. As I am talking to you, use cases are being developed, team are being trained and value is being delivered. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Emmanuelle. Thank you Estelle. From strategy and operational efficiency to real-world applications. Let's see what this innovation looks like specifically in today's fastest-growing sectors, data centers and advanced microelectronics welcome our panel of experts. I'm going to call on stage, Glenn [indiscernible] . CTO for Water Technologies at Veolia. Stuart Stock, Head of Digital Business and Technology at Veolia. Will Hughs, Global Lead for water sustainability at Amazon Web Services. And Richard Kirkman, CEO, Northern Europe zone and Chief Growth Officer at Veolia.

My first question is going to be for you, Richard. Now as you position yourselves at Veolia as the security partner for your clients, how is Veolia addressing the challenges that are caused by this growing demand for data centers and microelectronics? How are you turning these growth -- these into growth opportunities through sustainable solutions?

Well, Elie, I think for this mega opportunity, what we're very focused on is what our customers need, what their projects need on the ground and at the pace that they need them. It's a GBP 25 billion sector in the U.K. and it's powered by algorithms, but it's fueled by the available space, the available water, the available electricity. And if that's going to travel in the next few years, we simply can't have the resources required tripling at the same time. We have to conserve them because they simply aren't enough. Our estimates say that around 50% of the cost base of AI Infra is coming from the water and the power consumption. So having innovation to deliver that resource efficiency is critical. But you asked me how we're enabling it. And to answer your question, we think the enabling pathway is to use our technology to make it relatable to local populations. So you've heard about our hazardous waste technology for PFAS, our ultra-pure water, the way we can turn heat into cooling, novel sources of power and energy, but they're all framed in the sense of a circular economy, a low footprint, a net zero application. And that makes it relatable to local communities where they operate. I think that's probably our core offering.

Thank you so much, Richard. Let's hear directly from a city official, who is navigating these very tensions with the support of Veolia, it's in Belgium. Have a look. [Presentation]

I had a client testimony. And I'm now going to turn to Will Hughes. How do you approach well, the issues of the scarcity of resources? What measures have you implemented to make your infrastructure more resilient and perhaps to reduce this energy consumption and water footprint in your data centers?

Sure. Good morning, everybody, and thanks to Veolia for having us here at this event today. So at AWS, we're working to operate in a resilient and sustainable manner across all of our data center operations. On the energy side, we have goals to be net zero carbon by 2040. We had a -- we set a goal to be powered by 100% renewable energy by 2030, a goal that we met 7 years early and we're continuing to invest in carbon-free energy projects with over 700 of those to date. On the water side, which is the area where I focus, we have a goal to return more water to communities than we use in our data center operations. And there are 3 key ways that we're doing that. Broadly, we call them reduce, reuse and replenish. So on the reduced side, that's all about efficiency. We want to withdraw as little water from communities and from the environment as possible. And we've been innovating constantly over the past number of years to minimize that water use. We've improved our water efficiency by 40% over the past several years, really trying to decouple that growth in data center footprint from the growth in water use. And our water efficiency is about 82% better than the industry average. So we've been succeeding in that, but we're still working to continue to improve efficiency. On the reuse side, this is really about what types of water are we bringing in for cooling or data centers. Wherever possible, we don't want to use potable water for cooling. We're focused on as much as possible switching to recycled water, which is treated sewage. It's not competitive with the community's water supply. And we have -- we'll have in the next couple of years over 120 of our data centers around the world using recycled water instead of cooling water. And we're making huge investments in public water infrastructure to enable that over $1 billion of investment to date in recycled water infrastructure. And that helps to supply, of course, our data centers with non-potable water, but it also helps to build a more resilient and water supply for that community, because communities still make wastewater even in a drought. And so we're investing yes to supply our data centers, but also in ways that build resilience within the community. And then after we've maximized in those first 2 areas, efficiency and reuse of water, then we focus on replenishment. And these are projects that we fund within communities and within watersheds to help support water resources in that place. In India and Indonesia, we've done a lot of work to expand water and sanitation access in really drought-prone places. We focused on improving the availability of water by, for example, providing technology to farmers that helps them optimize irrigation and avoid overwatering. And then we're also funding projects focused on water quality. For example, here in the Thames River Basin, we've worked with the Rivers Trust and are continuing to work with them, local NGO to build wetlands and restore flood plains in ways that improve water quality in the Thames River. And so all of that together, those are the ways that we're helping to ensure that community water resources are better off from our operations in that community than they were before we were there.

Thank you, Will. So what I'm hearing is that you're already doing quite a bit for water reuse replenishment availability. What do you expect from a partner like Veolia? What can they do for you?

I think there are a number of potential intersection points. The 1 that really rises to the top for me immediately is on this water recycling question. So we're really good at operating data centers. We are, for the most part, not water treatment or wastewater treatment operators. And so we have some really complementary skill sets here with Veolia that can help us expand our ability to use recycled instead of potable water for data center cooling. One example of that is a project that we're just beginning right now around our new data center campus in Mississippi in the U.S. And there, one of our campuses is going to be switching entirely to recycled water in 2027. Now the public infrastructure, the water, the wastewater treatment is not to the point where we can use that directly in data center cooling today. And so we're working with Veolia to further treat that wastewater, so it's safe to use in our data centers. And we're actually piping that water from the treatment plant over to our facility and we're doing a water-as-a-service approach with Veolia, where we don't have to worry about the treatment and the buildings we are buying the water from Veolia and they're doing all of the O&M of this facility to treat the water to where it needs to be. Now one interesting thing about this is that we're actually putting the treatment that we're building just outside of the data center fence line so that it can potentially in the future, be an asset for other potential users of wastewater and recycled water in that community. And so that we're -- currently, it will be serving us, but there's a potential for others to tap into it in the future. And so that's the way I think one of the ways that we can work together to not only supply water to data centers, but also think about how we do it in a manner that helps support long-term water resilience for the community.

Thank you so much, Will. Thank Hugh, we've just heard this is the perspective of the major industry player. Earlier on, we heard from a city. I'm going to turn back to you, Richard. What does Veolia bring to the table to meet both these needs? And since it's the theme of the day, how is innovation helping you anticipate what's coming next?

Well, I think we've got the experience of not only developing new technology to address the technical needs, but also that deployment magic. I think that's often where the projects fall down and dreams fall apart. Our mantra is to get the solution on the ground, running quicker on time and affordably. That's what's important for us. We find innovation, I think, from what works. Of course, we've got deep research. We've got research institutes and labs and patents and open innovation funds and developers and pilots. But when a client like Will come to us and say, we need to deliver something, it needs to happen and it needs to be robust and always on. And I think we look there to 3 key things. First of all, cross-fertilization. Can we find another sector where we've deployed a solution already and it's working and we can adapt it for Will's business. So it might be ultra-purewater that we've delivered in defense or health care, and we adapt that for a data center. Secondly, we rely on the combination effect, the combination effect of water, waste and energy. We put those 3 things together. We've very successfully deployed that in the food sector, where we take food waste, we turn them into energy, we clean water. It's a circular approach. And we can use those combined effects as you've seen in our Data360 offer. And then finally, we've got a kind of what I'd call a scaling effect. And that's where our amazing CIO, he collects all the information from our thousands of water treatment plants, all operating in slightly different conditions, slightly different circumstances. But all that data comes together and gives us a unique insight, which we can apply to a new area. So cross-fertilizing combinations and the scaling effect come together to deliver something really special.

Glenn, let's bring you into the conversation. And give us the point of view of Water tech. How do you serve your clients' needs?

Veolia is very well positioned to take on this challenge because we have extensive experience in industry and municipalities, and we understand the opportunities and the limitations. If you think about it, the resources that are needed today include infrastructure. And we have a deep understanding of how to improve infrastructure. We are specialists are finding innovative solutions to squeeze more capacity at existing infrastructure. We can do that by simply operating the facility in a better way or we can apply our suite of technologies. For instance, we have a suite of wastewater intensification technologies that can turbocharge an asset to significantly improve the production out of it or we could deploy our [indiscernible] Hollow-fiber ultrafiltration membranes, we could install it in a conventional municipal wastewater plant and transform that facility into a water reuse factory. So really, what we're doing is we're offering our customers options to deal with the needs of today and plan for the future. And maybe even more to the point, we have a deep understanding of what our customers actually do with these resources. So we're here speaking about semiconductors and microelectronics. And over the last 30 years in Veolia, we have designed and supplied almost 400 full-scale ultrapure water facilities for our customers. So I kind of look at us as a bridge between the needs and resources of today and the opportunities of the future.

Thank you, Glenn. Stuart. I'm going to turn to you and now with a very direct question. AI is often framed as part of the problem. We know that it drives up energy and water consumption is the earliest use of AI different? If so, how? What makes your approach stand out?

Well, Ellie, since 2017, Veolia has been a pioneer in the cloud, providing services to our operations. So we've had to provide reliable and resilient solutions for those operations to continue. We talked earlier about or Emmanuel talked earlier about [indiscernible]. This is an important proprietary software that Veolia has where we have an inner source model with the zones in the BAU, so they can contribute to the innovation and the development on that platform. In terms of talk to my plan, clearly, it focuses on operations. So because we are helping to reduce waste water and energy, that naturally offsets the carbon footprint that we use in terms of generative AI. From a responsible AI point of view, we have a governance model on a global scale that focuses and make sure as we prioritize the right project based on the value that they drive. And we also orchestrate from a group level to ensure that there's no duplication of effort between the zones and the BAUs. In terms of training, by the end of next year, we want to have trained every single Veolia employee on AI. So they know when to use the models, and we're not to -- we don't want them to use LLM for something that a Google Search can simply do. In terms of proprietary software. There's a middleware piece in the middle, where it looks like the prompts that have been generated by the users and select the most appropriate large language model as well. And finally, we're not really training any models ourselves. We use knowledge bases that sit under the large language models, and naturally, that means we use less resources as well. And finally, sorry, I'd like to say we we take a very human-centric approach to what we do. There's 2 modes that we have at the moment. We have a normal mode where the responses that are generated and give the answer to the end user. And we have a training mode, where the end user asks or rights off prompt, but the generative AI talks through a series of questions to give them the answers so they don't use that cognitive ability.

Thank you so much Stuart. Glenn, we've spoken a lot about quantity now. But water quality is also ahead and constraint, particularly in semiconductor manufacturing, where, as you probably know, ultra-pure water is absolutely essential. What innovations can realistically reduce dependency on high-quality fresh water?

Well, the semiconductor industry is clearly pushing the boundaries of the 2- to 5-nanometer tech node and even has ambitious goals to reach angstrom levels. And what's clear is that if we're going to enable this technology, we have to improve the quality of our already very clean ultrapure water. And this is a real challenge for us. So we've adopted something we call the PPQ mindset, PPQ meaning Part [indiscernible] And it's our call to improve what we already have to serve the industry and also to develop new technologies. So a real-world example is our electrodeionization systems that are found in many, many ultrapure water facilities to deal with ionic contamination. We recently released our newest product based on the principle of PPQ to improve it. It's called our [ EcellME5Pco ], and it can deliver contamination levels lower than 1 part per trillion of ionic contaminants. Now that is impressive, but it's also not good enough. And so that's why earlier stall announced that we're developing a microelectronics innovation center in Singapore. And this will be an R&D laboratory and associated clean room. And all of the unit operations that you find in a UPW plant. And the point of this center is not just to develop these solutions and improve them. but as an area for collaboration with our customers, with other partners in the field or providing the solutions we really think that if we're going to deliver the solutions of tomorrow, we should do it together. And you think about it releasing new microchips every 18 months, we have our work cut out for us, and we're ready and excited to be on this journey.

Certainly. Thank you. Thank you so much. Will, we saw earlier that AWS and Veolia are collaborating on water reuse for data centers. I know that globally, AWS is also doing water replenishment initiatives. Do you have any plans to expand on this? And what role could partners like Veolia play in this expansion?

Right. So again, replenishment are those projects that we're funding within the community and within the watersheds to help support water resources outside of our direct operations. And to date, we've announced about 45 -- over 45 replenishment projects that are collectively restoring 18 billion liters of water to communities with a lot more in development. Increasingly, and I think one of the most exciting ways that we're doing these projects are working directly with utilities that are supplying us with water to find ways that we can help them operate more sustainably and more reliably. One example of that is by helping -- providing them with technology that helps them reduce nonrevenue water. And so for example, in Mexico City, that's a city of -- we're actually not -- we don't have data centers there, but we still saw it as an opportunity to help address given the major water constraints in Mexico City, over 20 million people there. They've been on the verge of day 0 where they could potentially shut off the water system for the whole city because of scarcity and they lose 40% of their water to leaks. And so we've worked with them to deploy technology that helps them optimize pressure, identifying repair leaks. -- and we're already saving billions of leaders of water there, and we're working to expand that further. That's the type of thing that we want to replicate around the world, both in places where we operate data centers and where we don't. And I think Veolia could potentially be a great partner on that. They have relationships with these water utilities. They know what those needs are. We're not coming in and telling water utility what they should do. They know those systems. We're always trying to find the project that help is going to help respond to what that community really needs on water. And so having partners that can help deliver those solutions and that know those utilities is a great way to accelerate progress in building out the preplanishment portfolio. And really, the goal here is not just to fund projects to meet our water positive goal to return more water communities. It's also to really help identify and elevate those key innovations that are going to help solve the world's water challenges more broadly. And the types of technologies and solutions that Veolia and our other tech partners bring are a big way that we're helping to uptake -- or accelerate the uptake of these innovations that are critical to solving water challenges.

Richard, one last question to close this panel. I think we can see clearly that we're living through a major technological geopolitical reset, what is Veolia's role in this new world? And what gives you confidence that innovation will be part of the answer?

Look, as you say, I think we all do acknowledge we're a pretty special moment in history, with the technological acceleration. We've never seen that before at that pace. We've got political situation and at the same time, a bit of a resource crunch. There aren't enough resources to fuel that unless we do something differently. And Veolia from our history, we've never been a by standard when it comes to these things. We've always been there to address the current need but make sure it's resilient into the future because we're a long-term player. So we do innovation in a way which, yes, it deploys new technology, and we have researchers on that. But we have a kind of ingrained philosophy of, first of all, really listening to our customers, actively listening to what they need, what their strategic needs are, where they're going, anticipating what the future will hold, what the regulation will look like, what the resources pathway is. And then putting that together and responding, responding to what we've heard, responding to our anticipation and our prediction and bringing together our cross-fertilization, our combination of our businesses and the scale data insights that we have. And altogether, it's pretty exciting, and we're looking forward to it. It's a thrilling moment and we're ready, willing and able to accelerate.

Thank you so much, Richard. Thank you, gentlemen. -- insights. Shall we give a roundtable a bit of a applause. Thank you so much. Thank you for them. Now to close this plenary and share key takeaways, I now invite Estelle Brachlianoff to please come and take the stage once more.

So today, you've seen what innovation looks like at Veolia. This is innovation that secures critical needs, solutions that deliver real impact everywhere in our boosters, pushing tomorrows frontier as well as in our strong goals, making essential services more competitive and more affordable. And for 170 years, the pattern has always been the same. We anticipate before crisis strike. We invent proprietary solutions, we create impact and sustainable growth. From Paris in the 1853 to the AI industries revolution today. And we are backing this with unprecedented ambition. EUR 1 billion dedicated to innovation during GreenUp. By 2030, EUR 1 billion in revenue for data centers and chips manufacturing. And 50% of our operational efficiencies, which will be due to digital and AI because scaling up those tools can be a force for sustainable growth. And I am very confident because we anticipate, we prioritize, we invest and scale up exactly as we've seen in our EUR 1 billion target for PFAS and [indiscernible] Treatment, which is well underway. Proprietary solutions for critical needs. That's our winning formula for environmental security. Thank you very much.

Now ladies and gentlemen, we are going to open the floor to your questions. [Operator Instructions]

Wierzbicka Serwinowska, UBS. Just one question on the potential benefits from AI. You mentioned it helps your customers help -- The question is about the benefits from the AI. Can you quantify it? Because at the end, we analysts we really like the numbers. So, can you quantify the EUR 1 million? How much do you benefit? How much was achieved maybe? Or how much do you expect this year?

So the benefit from AI is all the efficiencies we do. So Emmanuel has mentioned a few figures. We went from 10% of all our efficiency -- operational efficiency plan to 23%, and we target 50%. So -- which is the operational part of our efficiency, which is only part of our global efficiency plan, as you can imagine. So last year in '25, it was around EUR 60 million, something like that, just from digital and AI related and basically, we're doubling by the end of the decade in a running rate, it's here to stay. I think you have in the pack, Emmanuel has mentioned that, but a lot of examples of what's behind that. And why it's not just -- I don't know, sorry, but get rid of a few people type of initiative. It's everything but that typically talk to my plant was a good example. I think we have a page here with it's, whatever, 10% of energy savings in in desalination plant, it's 2% of leakage reduction in a network distribution, it's 20% less [indiscernible] Into wastewater treatment plants, therefore, reducing like energy consumption. That's a series of a few percent of efficiency here and there on thousands of pumps across the globe. So, so far, we have them in a few of those plants, the tools applied. And the idea is to scale up, of course, and to deploy the solution to more and more plant to close the globe. So that's a good example of -- we were usually has always with another question, how do you sustain efficiency for so long. And I always say we will sustain efficiency forever, the efficiency plan. AI is a good example of that, right? Emmanuel, you want to elaborate?

Yes. So Wanda. So I absolutely agree. So on the value creation on AI, we have several pillars, growth, resilience and capital allocation. And I had a discussion last week with one of our investors and say something really true. When you look at the 200,000 people of Veolia, they are waking up every day thinking new business I'm going to win. What can I have, as new efficiency because it's main condition for us to be competitive. And we haven't waited for AI to go for efficiency. For years, we have launched digital program. And as Estelle mentioned it, it's at the end of 2025, it's 23% of our operational efficiencies. But 2 years ago, it was already 10%. So it's increasing, and we are targeting 50% in 2030, meaning that it's making our resilience, it's confirming our synergies and making them even more sustainable. So it will come from 2 elements. The first one, it's copy and adapt because today, we have digital implement solutions, which are implemented for sure, for instance, just take the example of Spain. In the last 4 years in Spain, we have generated for each of the year, EUR 4 million, thanks to digital savings. So monitoring quality, decreasing the amount of chemical products. So EUR 16 million in 4 years. And we can duplicate that in all the water plant and waste water plant we have at Veolia. That's the first element. The same element as mentioned by Estelle is general, which is a game changer for us. Just imagine the maintenance cost we have. So we have in our CapEx, EUR 1.9 billion of maintenance CapEx, but we have also maintenance cost in OpEx, it's EUR 4 billion. If we just say 0.001% of this amount, it's very significant on our EBITDA. So AI will play a significant role on efficiency on top of everything that will happen on the top line.

Do we have another question? I think we had another question here, and then we will come to you, sir.

This is [indiscernible] Spain. I have 2 questions for Estelle linked to the Spanish market. The first one is about CriteriaCaixa, you know is your shareholder since last year. And they took a 5% stake. How satisfied are you with CriteriaCaixa as a shareholder? And if you think that they could increase the participation in the company? And the second one is one of your tenders you have in Barcelona, which is valuing EUR 1 billion, more or less. And how confident are you on winning this tender?

Okay. So very specific to Spain and actually not Spain to actually Catalonia. Very happy to answer those. In a way, that's a big translation of what I just explained in my speech, which is we are very large in scale when it comes to innovation and ability to invest, but very embedded in the various community. So in a way, I love this type of question because it's an exact translation of what we are trying to explain. So,Caixa first. So CriteriaCaixa took 5% stake in the group last year. They are very happy about the investment. We are very happy about to have them on board. They have a Board representative as well. And it's not only me saying that. They are a long-term investor, happy about long-term sustainable delivery of results and dividends. And actually, the newly appointed [ Dele Grader Generado ], Sorry, I don't Spanish, so I hope I'm not [indiscernible] . very happy about the investment very recently a few weeks ago. So everybody seems to be happy about that. But now I guess you know we are here to stay as a partner as a long-term shareholder. So we're talking about long term. So in a way, a year of living together is a great year. There will be many, many more years and why not one they increase the share. Let's start with being happy about the way we are dealing with that to start with. In terms of the [ Tandon Barcelona ], you're right, we have the large contract of the -- the metropolitan area of Barcelona, but there are a few cities, which are very near by the the metropolitan itself, which are in a different tender mode, and they are at tender at the moment. We've put a very good offer, not only taking all the benefits of what all our team in Spain and in Catalonia has learned over the years. So the best of what we can do in Catalonia, but the best of what you've seen today in a way in terms of innovation and worldwide and the group's capacity to make it specific to the needs of those municipalities in Barcelona. And of course, we, including be very efficient and affordable because it's, of course, a [indiscernible] . So that's the best win now. We've put an excellent offer, which I'm very proud of.

Thank you, Estelle. I'm going to take a question from online. This is a question from Ajay Patel from Goldman Sachs. He thanks us all for the presentation. You're very welcome, Ajay. We're happy to oblige. And here is his question. Given the rising impact of AI and digital on operational efficiencies, should we expect cost-cutting targets to increase over time? And if not, what is declining in the other direction?

No, I'm usually anticipating this question, and Emmanuel has it regulated. -- I guess, we're always trying to find new sources of efficiency. To sustain a level, which, if you recall, used to be EUR 200 million a year, when it was the Veolia alone, we raised it to EUR 250 million a year when we acquired [indiscernible] See raised it to EUR 350 million a year. We've exceeded our targets. So in a way, digital NII so far is embedded into what we've already committed, which is EUR 350 million a year. If one day, we could increase, we will. But the only thing I can tell you is we're always looking for the more we can, and we always have new ideas sustain that for a very long term. So it's already included in.

Thank you, Estele. And I believe we had a question here. Who is first? I think it was the person in front, who was first. Yes, correct? Would you please stand up?

Arthur Sitbon, Morgan Stanley. So my question was on the EUR 1 billion of revenues from AI industries. I was wondering, first, where you're starting from, if it's at 0 today or you already have some revenues linked to that. And what's the typical like EBITDA return on capital employed profile of those of those revenues? That would be the first question. And the second one quickly on the efficiencies that you were talking about. As I imagine, you will not be the only company in the sector to try to drive those efficiencies. I was wondering if you think, theoretically, they will come with the same type of retention rate than you have on your usual efficiencies or if that could be higher, lower? Just any thoughts on that would be interesting.

So for the first question, you have the Page 24 with the answer. We mentioned it in our speech but I appreciate the fact that it was an intense of information presentation. So we started a few years ago at EUR 150 million. Now we are at EUR 560 million, and we basically aim at doubling by the end of the decade, combining all the forces. ROCE, fund employed, of course, Emmanuel is going to be a low-margin making super not profitable, super CapEx intensive, isn't it? Not really.

No, very fair question because you're right, development is nice, but it has to be profitable and contribute to our ROCE accretion. As mentioned by Estelle, we are close to the EUR 600 million for revenue at the end of 2025, and we are targeting EUR 1 billion, meaning that we -- in terms of top line, it's an increase of globally EUR 1 billion. The major part of it today, it's Micro. And Micro today, it's mainly Water Tech and Hazardous Waste. When we are looking at our forecast and provision, working with our business line, what we see that A huge part of the growth will come from Hazardous Waste. It will be organically, but a small part will be also from few tuck-ins. So we did an acquisition that you may have seen in Taiwan. The name [indiscernible] , very profitable business. And on top of that will come the water growth. On data centers, today, we have 50% of revenue, which is coming from Water Tech and 50%, which is O&M. What we expect in the years to come, it will mainly be on the O&M part, especially in the energy and the water part. And in terms of ROCE, you globally know the ROCE of Hazardous Waste and of Water Tech. So we are reaching at a minimum this level for the project we are launching.

And just to elaborate on what Emmanuel said, the revenue, the EUR 0.5 billion is already now roughly is a lot of macro and not a lot of data centers. And progressively, I could see the data centers ramping up. It's not by chance, and it was a discussion, it was on the round table. Data centers is a boom, which is relatively recent in its scale, and it started with what about power. Now the discussion is moving into acceptability and water and stuff like that. But it's only starting. So it's not by chance that we are launching the new offer today. Probably 2 years ago, I'm not so sure we would have any interest, if I'm honest, from big hyperscaler in such an offer. Now it's time. So I can see like the things moving. And in terms of the ROCE and everything, the investments are mainly behind us. As we explained when we discussed on Hazardous Waste, like the -- we almost have no revenue, no profits, but almost all the funds employed already on our balance sheet because when I said we are opening now solvent recycling in U.K., in Taiwan. And everything we've mentioned today pretty much by the end of the year is going to be in our balance sheet without the ramping up yet of the profitability. So I guess Don't worry, we're going to go on with improving the ROCE of the group, including with this new growth opportunity. And retention rates of efficiency reduction rate of efficiency. So I just wanted to mention one example regarding retention rate. Stuart spoke about [indiscernible and we were a few weeks ago with some of our colleagues in the waste-to-energy plant in [indiscernible] It was really interesting to see what are they doing? We talk to my plant. And what we have seen and what I like is that they have been able to generate, saving of EUR 200 million just for one incinerator by doing one thing, thanks to the additional AI layers that we have. It was to optimize the stream production in order to reach thermal saturation. And it's bringing for 1 incinerator EUR 200,000, meaning that when you multiply that by the 70s incinerator, we have worldwide, potential saving that we can do. So today, our ambition is at least to keep our retention rate at sites, which is between 30% and 50%. And you have a lot of figures on Page 43, 44, 45 in the presentation, with a percentage of efficiency gains and things like that, which you can have an illustration and give you color about what we're talking about here.

I'm just going to take a question from our -- the people following us online. This is a question from David from [indiscernible]. When can we expect the first data center to go live with your your 360 solution fully deployed on the data center?

I guess we already have 100 sites across the globe with data center who use part of this offer. Not necessarily the entirety of it. As it was said in some circumstances. The question is more the water regeneration. In other places, it's more the wasted heat, but we already have 100 sites which have part of the solution already now. The one I love is in the U.K., we're in the U.K., so what about taking a U.K. example? What about the genome campus who wants to talk a little bit about the Genome Compass or shall I? Genome Compass is in Cambridge. It's a massive, massive new investment, super high-tech. There will be a lot of start-ups, whatever on genome, not so sure I understood perfectly everything they're going to do but super R&D in the Cambridge University. We won a large project there, very much in anticipation because it's under construction. It's not yet fully developed. Where we will use the energy heat from the data center to feed the compass, it saves I think 30,000 tons of CO2, if I remember well, and that's not very far away from here. And we have, I think it's GBP 2 billion of pipeline in the U.K. alone. The problem is usually I'm not allowed to mention any names or any locations. It's so secret. And I understand it could be a bit frustration. But there are a lot of projects, for instance, in the U.K. So very confident.

Currently in the pipeline, yes. Understood. Thank you Estelle. I'd like to gently encourage you to not forget that you have access to all of our lovely panelist this morning, so you can address your questions, too. Every single one of them. Do we have any other question in the room?

Alexandre Roncier, Bank of America. A follow-up on margins and numbers and innovation. I think you mentioned for mobile water treatment units, and I think that's the units we saw in Poznan 1.5 years ago, 2000 unit, 25% margin. Should we think that this fleet is fully utilized? Or do you have upside to those 25% margin if use cases grow? And then secondly, if we think about returns from new innovation revenues for Veolia, should we think about that 25% margin as a floor not necessarily for the EUR 0.5 billion of data center revenues, which I think you mentioned are more O&M, but in general, at Veolia.

Emmanuel?

Regarding the -- thank you for your question, Alex. Regarding the retention, the utilization rate, we are targeting at least 80%. So the short-term story is we still have room of maneuver and the possibility to increase. That's for sure. In terms of profitability, what we have seen so far is really profitable. I was mentioning our small acquisition Startek in semiconductor industry. We are reaching more than 25% margin. For a lot of projects, we are around 20%. So what we are targeting worldwide is to be at least above 20%.

And I guess, on profitability in more general terms, less specifically to your question. You've noticed that we've increased by 150bp the margin of Veolia in last 2 years alone. And this is not going to stop. The more we are international, the more we are tech like we've seen today, the more it goes with higher margin. And that's not by chance, that's exactly what the greener plan is about investing in priority outside Europe, in the tech stuff, exactly to drive growth, which is more and more profitable with higher margin. We've demonstrated it plus the efficiency plan, as we've seen this morning, fed by AI -- that's exactly the transformation the group is moving at a very fast pace. And we'll soon have the keys, hopefully, of Clean Earth acquisition in the U.S., which will be another big like game changer for us, doubling our size in the Hazardous Waste in the U.S., that's high margin as well. So each time we are increasing that differentiation element which goes with high margin. So I think you know it's here to stay really.

Thank you, Estelle. Thank you for the question. Do we have any other questions from the room?

This is Paula Solanas from La vanguard in Spain. And I'm sorry to ask you again about the Spanish market. But you do mention in your plan of operations in data centers and microchips in the U.S., mostly and some countries like Germany, the U.K., anything also France, but not Spain. I wanted to ask you if this is also related to the bigger more aggravating scarcity of resources in Spain, especially when it comes to water because of the recent droughts? And what is the scalability you see in Spain this data center plant in terms of investment and number of data centers?

No, I think we still have a lot of opportunities with this new launch of this data-centric resource today, new offer in Spain. We have many other opportunities. So [indiscernible], Head of Spain, he can tell you a lot about our ambition to grow the business in Spain, where we already are very present in water, very present in the energy efficiency present in recycling of plastic, but we have many, many other opportunities. Data centers is one. What are the positives and negatives about Spain in that regard? The positive green energy at a reasonably reasonable price. When you look at the map of pure green energy price, Spain stands out in a positive way, thanks to everything which was developed over the last 5 to 10 years. On the negative side, you're right, water scarcity is everywhere, and there could be a limiting factor. The good news is Veolia in Spain has done progressively to develop reuse of waste water, recycling of a lot of things. So in a way, we have the solutions as well to unlock this potential. If there was data centers we wanted to be implemented in some places in Spain. And for the rest, it's going to be for political elected members to decide if they want to give a permit or not to those data centers. It's not for us to this side. We can tell you what can be done. It can be made sustainably. It can be even with a positive at one point, but the rest will be for them to decide.

Yes. We have a question right here.

I'm Nicola Medland with LeseconchPaper. I would like to know of the EUR 1 billion you expect from AI and chips industries, how much will come from Europe, including the U.K.? And also another question. I'd like to have a comment on how your U.S. business is doing at the moment given the current environment.

So I won't give a speed between Spain, France, whatever the U.S., like it's a global reach, and we -- the EUR 1 billion is everywhere. And it's fair to say there is a competition as we speak on data centers implementation. And Mr. Hughes will be well placed to to talk about that if you want -- if you wish to expand on the -- like everybody is trying to attract investment, but not at the detriment of local communities or resource scarcity and so on and so forth. So there is a a big demand. So that's everywhere. Same applies to microelectronics. It's fair to say that so far, the big 2 places were the microeconictors, which is smaller, you can you can go more Southeast Asia, Taiwan, in particular, a little bit South Korea and the U.S. But Europe has an intention to catching up in many respects with [indiscernible], just to mention one name. So we have a project in , I think it's Sicily is it, there is one in Gonobla. So Europe is not lagging, but everybody realize that microelectronics is of a matter of sovereignty. And therefore, there is a big ambition in Europe to try and catch up on that front as well. So we'll see, and we'll be ready to serve them. How is our U.S. business doing? I'm regularly asked. Actually, I remember when we announced that we would invest massively in the U.S. with the big Clean Earth acquisition, which we are under the various procedures of getting the approval and should be done by mid-'26, so in a few weeks' time. People were saying, okay, Estelle, with Donald Trump in the White House, you invest massively in the U.S. when you're an environmental services powerhouse. How is it possible? I was asked this question quite a lot. The answer is quite simple. the demand is here. It's a sustainable demand, whatever the political agenda in some respects. The demand comes from the population, demand come from industries. And the demand is a demand for environmental security -- is to secure water access, is to secure health as in remove PFAS, for instance, in the U.S., which is a big thing. So in a way, whoever you voted for now almost 1.5 years ago, in the end, you don't want to have pollutant when you open your tap. When you're in Arizona and you have a TSMC massive factory, without disrupt water, without solvent recovery anywhere, there is no factory at all. So the question is not who's elected in Washington. The question is critical needs. And I think that's a very important element. That's why I talk about environmental security, which is what we do because it goes down to critical needs. And I'm daring making the link with what's happening as we speak in the Middle East. We suddenly realize in the Middle East that water is as important as oil, if not more. Even for data centers, we couldn't be like working without that. Obviously, for agriculture, for everybody to this. So in a way, critical needs in the U.S. are critical needs like they are in Europe, but are critical needs in the Middle East. We're talking about vital essential services. So our U.S. business is doing well.

Thank you for this candid answer, Estelle. Do we have any other questions? Yes, we have a question right here, please.

Bernstein. Just on the data centers and the energy side of the data centers, I just wonder if you can offer actually power access to data centers as well. And I'm thinking about your incinerators, whether you thought about maybe offering them the connection to your incinerators and they can be partially off grid. Consequently, also, if you can offer data centers access to grid, for instance, via your decarbonized power plants you have in Central Eastern Europe. I guess you will have excess capacity once you decarbonize those and also maybe related excess land. Just thinking about, I mean, whether this is also on your offer or it's only water and waste being discussed here.

So it's -- I don't know if you want to -- Richard?

I think in terms of energy supplies to data centers, we've got an incredibly flexible offering under our 360 offering because we can either use our existing energy supplies from landfill gas, from incineration, from digestion of food waste and sleeve that to data centers remotely or locate those facilities close to data centers or we can bring those novel fuel sources to the sites. As Will mentioned, we've got a project in the U.S. where we're taking biosolids and using that as the water source. We could just as well be digesting those biosolids, getting a biogas and using that biogas to provide energy to the data center. So it's the combination of effects this circularization of what we're doing with water, waste and energy, which is the capability which we're rolling out. At the moment, on our existing data center micro assets, we're really providing 1 or 2 of those things. But going forward, it's more looking like 3 because you get a combined effect and a better efficiency.

You've understood that at Veolia, nothing is wasted. We turn waste into resources.

Do we have any other questions from the room?

I was just wondering if you had any reflections on I'm sorry, we can't hear you. I'm sorry, I'll speak a bit louder. I wondered if anyone has any reflections on a big headline for us in the U.K. recently, which was that OpenAI is pausing its development of the Stargate data center. And I wonder sort of if there's any comments you have on the regulatory barriers in the U.K. when it comes to data centers and AI and on the water scarcity issue in the U.K. as well.

So I won't be able to specifically comment on the OpenAI announcement and then remove and all the rest of it, which is the news in the U.K. What you can say is a few things. Richard mentioned that if we follow up the trend on data centers and micro, we are 3x the consumption of water and energy by 2030 in the U.K. Basically, it will mean we would need the water for the equivalent of an extra 3 million inhabitant City and an extra 3 million inhabitant power generation by 2030, which is tomorrow morning. So a lot of people, apart from the British in the room, probably think that water is a problem for your Spanish colleague, but would not be a problem in the U.K. You would be wrong. For a lot of geological reasons, I would be very happy to explain with Clay and everything. Everything south of Birmingham, but correct me if I'm wrong, there are people more aware than I am here. Everything south of Birmingham is in water scarcity mode in the U.K. You even have desalination plant in this country already now. So there is a scarcity of water even in the U.K. And as far as electricity is concerned and grid, there is a big strain on the green, and there is a question of affordability and grid connection and so on and so forth. So acceptability in the U.K. is something absolutely critical. What I can say in terms of -- I don't know how the legislation is going to move, but we've seen in Europe a few places whereby instead of the major saying no to a project, he said, yes, but those are the conditions. Those are the conditions that you reuse the waste heat to feed my district heating in the U.K., we are developing district heating. There could be even more. There is a potential for more, and that could be a good option. It could be a yes, but let's use, as Mr. Yu said, recycled water from a wastewater treatment plant as opposed to new water, if you want and so on and so forth. So I can see the trend of legislation moving from the yes and no black and white to the yes, but with some condition and, of course, job creations and so on and so forth. This is the way I see it. And there is an extra one in the U.K., which is a country of roughly 70 million inhabitants on an island, which is wonderful, lovely, not that land rich, like it's super dense, which is a scarcity for land. That's why we even have projects, which I cannot talk about in the U.K. where we use land which are -- had another usage before, if you want, industrial lines to redo something out of them for data center as opposed to use new land, new green land for data center. And I think you know that all the series of that, which at one point can make it acceptable.

Do we have any other questions?

My name is [indiscernible]. I am the leader of Latin America and of Toyota. And when you speak Estelle during your speech that Veolia wants to be very close like different things happened. You mentioned that in Latin America, we have the most research of lithium around the world. So my question is, if you consider perhaps a new unit of business related to circular economy of lithium recycle in Latin America because as a vehicle industry, it's very important start to think with strategic partners about, for example, [indiscernible] lithium batteries recycling. In fact, in Argentina, we are developed with Veolia like a strategic partner a project like this.

Which country are you from, if I may ask?

Argentina, maybe my English sounds a bit strange.

I was wondering if it was Argentina or a neighboring country, I won't mention his name anyway. So I guess, the desert of Atacama roughly between Argentina and Chile. And other thing is super rich of a few things, lithium in Chile, you have copper as well and other minerals. And there is a mining boom of lithium, which has its positive and negative. It's super water, [indiscernible] it the mining, and we have specific technology to try to, again, recycle the water because if you're in a desert and you don't have water, you cannot mine and to recycle the water almost instantly to be able to extract with limiting the impact on the water resource. With regards to circular economy in South America and Argentina and Chile, that's an interesting question. Gustavo is here, our Head of South America and Iberia who could elaborate about the -- we already have a few initiatives, a few ideas on a few projects. In Colombia, in -- I will miss one in Chile as well, in particular, just to try to move the needle in terms of not only extract but be circular. So Gustavo, do you want to elaborate?

Yes. In fact, okay. We work with Toyota in Argentina, recycling solvent today. So we work in Colombia recycling plastics. So the intention is there. The capability to do it is there. Sometimes what we need is to have the conditions of the market, the demand, the consistency of the feedstock for these kind of installations. So all these kind of things needs to be analyzed country by country. But you can count on us to analyze specific issues. We talked before about recycling some kind of batteries or giving a second life to some kind of batteries. Of course, we will be there. We need to analyze very carefully that all the conditions to make it a sustainable activity are also there.

And in the plant in Japan, I mentioned earlier in my speech. This is a battery factory in Japan, which some of the affluent still have a trace of lithium and cobalt and [indiscernible] Into the water, if you wish. Instead of just treating it and that's it, we are recouping in a way, we are mining the Waste Water. And that's exactly what our technologies can help us do to extract a little bit the remaining traces of lithium, which are traces but even in nature, you only have traces. It's not pure lithium. So we have as well things that we've done in Japan, in Australia exactly doing what I said. So maybe that will be of interest to you that we can discuss about that.

I have a question from our online question from Philippe Ourpatian from OHF. What would be the equivalent installed capacity or production in [indiscernible] Gigawatt hour available for the DC needs in your AI 360 solution offer? And I believe that this may be a question for this side.

I think -- so I do not -- maybe Steward will...

[indiscernible].

Anyway, when you're Veolia, you've understood that for AI and digital. It's too flip of a coin. On one side, we are serving customers to help them be more sustainable, like AWS, hyperscalers or the macro electronics. On the other flip of the coin, we want to use it for our own needs to be more efficient and, therefore, produce more green energy, consume less water and so on and so forth. Of course, if one was to be a big negative and the other one is more positive, we would have a problem environmentally speaking. So we are constantly checking exactly that, that the positive is largely hard way the negative. So went towards, and that's why I was alluding to Steward when Stewart is doing top to my plant, we don't necessarily use the large language model, the most sexy -- sorry, latest version of them. If we can use a little bit less but less consuming resource, we always will have this very big focus on we don't want to use too much resource ourselves because it's precisely our mission. If I remember 20,000 tons of CO2 altogether that we consume with our digital NAI, something like that? 2,000. So it wasn't even too big, 2,000. 2,000 tons of CO2, we consume while, at the same time, a super big positive of reducing water consumption and energy savings and so on and so forth. So it's 99% positive and 1% negative as in we consume some results, something like that.

Absolutely.

Thank you so much. Do we have any other questions from the room? All right. This brings, I believe, our Q&A session to an end. And it also brings our live segment an end to all of you who followed us remotely, a big thank you for joining us today, and we hope to see you soon in future them. Goodbye.