French President Emmanuel Macron speaks throughout a gathering with members of the AI sector on the Elysee Presidential Palace in Paris, France, on Could 21, 2024.
Yoan Valat | Afp | Getty Photographs
PARIS — France is touting itself as the following synthetic intelligence superpower.
The Viva Know-how convention in Paris final week was buzzing with discuss how far France has come as a frontrunner in AI.
A substantial amount of chatter surrounded the French AI agency H, beforehand named Holistic, which raised $220 million in a seed funding spherical from buyers together with U.S. tech big Amazon and Google’s billionaire ex-CEO Eric Schmidt.
A typical theme for French AI corporations receiving massive sums of cash is that they are including U.S. tech heavyweights to their shareholder lists.
Earlier this month, France obtained a flood of recent non-public investments, led by a dedication from Microsoft of 4 billion euros ($4.4 billion), its largest ever into France.
AI all over the place at Viva Tech
At Viva Tech, AI was all over the place. Previous the massive, vivid pink “VIVA” signal towards the entrance, there was a complete alley known as “AI Avenue,” which was surrounded by U.S. tech corporations equivalent to Salesforce and AWS.
Generative AI was on show all over the place — even from corporations you would not anticipate.
For instance, French magnificence big L’Oreal confirmed off an AI-powered magnificence assistant known as “BeautyGenius” at a big sales space close to the middle of the Porte de Versailles convention venue.
The success of Viva Tech has turn out to be symbolically vital for France as a part of its bid to turn out to be a number one tech and AI hub that may rival the likes of the U.S. and China.
“France is the chief on synthetic intelligence in Europe,” Bruno Le Maire, France’s finance minister, advised CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal at Viva Tech final week.
He made clear that, whereas France has a serving to hand from U.S. tech giants, “we need to have our personal synthetic intelligence being created and being developed in France.”
Referring to Microsoft’s funding in France, Le Maire mentioned, “Microsoft is far welcome in our nation. However the problem for us is to have our personal units, our personal scientists … and we’re working very laborious for that.”
France boasts a powerful AI analysis and growth ecosystem, house to key amenities just like the Fb AI Analysis middle from Meta and Google’s AI analysis hub in Paris, in addition to main universities.
“France stands as one among Europe’s most vibrant innovation hubs,” Etienne Grass, the France managing director of Capgemini Invent, the digital innovation arm of Capgemini, advised CNBC. “The nation nurtures a thriving startup scene, marked by important strides in AI,” Grass added.
Imran Ghory, companion at Blossom Capital, mentioned that whereas France has a terrific observe document in relation to analysis and academia, it has struggled to funnel high quality expertise into “nice corporations.”
AI labs from Meta and Google have “created a coaching floor for college students and researchers to study what main tech corporations look and work like from the within,” Ghory mentioned.
“We’re now seeing the fruits of this as many researchers and AI engineers start spinning out their very own corporations.”
Vying for tech management
French President Emmanuel Macron advised CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin in an interview final week that his nation is “main the tech trade in Europe.” Nevertheless, he famous Europe is “lagging behind” the U.S. and that the continent wants extra “massive gamers.”
“It is insane to have a world the place the large giants simply come from China and the U.S,” Macron advised mentioned on the Elysee Palace. He praised Mistral, the French AI agency backed by U.S. tech big Microsoft, and H.
Final week, Macron met with Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, Yann LeCun, chief AI scientist of Meta, and James Manyika, Google’s senior vp of tech and society, amongst others, on the Elysee to debate methods to make Paris a worldwide AI hub.
Maurice Levy, CEO of promoting and public relations big Publicis Groupe, advised CNBC’s Karen Tso he thinks France has the potential to turn out to be a prime 5 nation for AI growth. Levy mentioned France is “decided” to slim the hole between the U.S. and China and Europe in relation to AI.
France “might be a part of the 5 greatest nations on AI on this planet,” after the U.S., China, Israel, and the U.Okay., Levy mentioned in a TV interview final week. He referred to H’s mammoth funding spherical for instance of the momentum surrounding French AI proper now.
Levy mentioned roughly 40% of the tech demos at Viva Tech have been AI. AI is “one thing which is … not solely taking off, however has already taken off fairly massively,” he mentioned.
In a hearth dialogue final week, Google’s Manyika mentioned a whole lot of the innovation the agency has been bringing to the desk is sourced from engineers in France.
He mentioned that Google’s just lately launched Gemma AI, a light-weight, open-source mannequin, was developed closely on the U.S. web big’s Paris AI hub.
In line with knowledge from Dealroom, France claimed a roughly 20% share of total European AI startup funding in 2023, greater than the 15% common of European funding that goes into AI startups throughout the bloc.
France is not the European AI chief, although, in accordance with Dealroom, with U.Okay. corporations elevating greater than double the quantity of each AI and GenAI funding than France.
Innovation versus regulation
France’s Macron mentioned the problem for Europe is accelerating AI analysis and growth whereas additionally regulating at “acceptable scale.”
Final week, the EU permitted the AI Act, a landmark legislation regulating synthetic intelligence.
Some tech executives warned Europe may hamper its AI ambitions with regulation that’s too restrictive. France has been among the many nations to have criticized the EU AI Act for being too restrictive in relation to innovation.
Pascal Brier, Capgemini’s chief innovation officer, mentioned whereas regulation is required to make sure AI is not left to turn out to be too highly effective, it is vital to make sure new legal guidelines just like the AI Act do not by chance “kill” innovation.
He mentioned regulators ought to keep away from implementing the “precept of precaution” — the concept that AI makers ought to keep away from doing issues that may do hurt, as a rule.
“There is no approach you possibly can cease AI — it is solely the top of the start,” Brier advised CNBC. “It isn’t going to cease there.”
