France aims to become world leader in artificial intelligence with support from major US tech companies

PARIS – France is positioning itself as the next artificial intelligence superpower.

The Viva Technology conference in Paris last week was full of talk about how far France has come as a leader in artificial intelligence.

Much has been made of French AI firm H, formerly Holistic, which has raised $220 million in a seed round from investors including US tech giant Amazon and billionaire former Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

A common theme among French artificial intelligence companies raising large sums of money is that they are adding American tech heavyweights to their shareholder lists.

Earlier this month, France received a flood of new private investment, led by Microsoft’s €4 billion ($4.4 billion) commitment, the largest ever in France.

At Viva Tech, artificial intelligence was everywhere. Beyond the big bright pink “VIVA” sign, there was an entire alley ahead called “AI Avenue”, surrounded by American tech firms such as Salesforce and AWS.

Generative AI has been demonstrated everywhere—even from companies you wouldn’t expect.

For example, French beauty giant L’Oreal demonstrated an artificial intelligence beauty assistant called “BeautyGenius” at a large booth near the center of the Porte de Versailles conference venue.

Viva Tech’s success has become symbolically important for France as part of its ambition to become a leading technology and artificial intelligence hub capable of competing with countries such as the US and China.

“France is a leader in artificial intelligence in Europe,” Bruno Le Maire, France’s finance minister, told CNBC’s Arjun Harpal at Viva Tech last week.

He made clear that while France is being helped by US tech giants, “we want France to create and develop our own artificial intelligence.”

Speaking about Microsoft’s investment in France, Le Maire said: “Microsoft is very welcome in our country. But the challenge for us is to have our own devices, our own scientists… and we are working very hard for that.”

France boasts a strong AI R&D ecosystem, home to key facilities such as Meta’s Facebook AI Research Center and Google’s AI Research Center in Paris, as well as leading universities.

“France is one of the most dynamic centers of innovation in Europe,” Etienne Grasse, managing director of Capgemini Invent France, Capgemini’s digital innovation arm, told CNBC. “The country has a thriving startup scene, marked by significant advances in artificial intelligence,” Grass added.

Imran Ghori, partner at Blossom Capital, said that while France has an excellent track record in research and academia, it struggles to send talent to “great companies.”

Meta and Google’s artificial intelligence labs “have created a training ground for students and researchers to learn what top tech companies look like and operate from the inside,” Gorey said.

“We are now seeing the fruits of this as many AI researchers and engineers are starting to start their own companies.”

French President Emmanuel Macron told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin in an interview last week that his country “leads the tech industry in Europe.” However, he noted that Europe is “lagging” behind the US and that the continent needs more “big players”.

“It is madness to live in a world in which big giants have just come from China and the United States,” Macron said at the Elysee Palace. He praised Mistral, a French artificial intelligence firm backed by US tech giant Microsoft, and H.

Last week, Macron met at the Elysee Palace with Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, Yann LeCun, chief artificial intelligence scientist at Meta, and James Manica, Google’s senior vice president of technology and society, among others, at the Elysee Palace to discuss ways to make Paris global. AI Center.

Maurice Levy, CEO of advertising and public relations giant Publicis Groupe, told CNBC’s Karen Tso that he believes France has the potential to be among the top five countries for artificial intelligence. Levy said France is “determined” to close the gap between the US, China and Europe when it comes to artificial intelligence.

France “could become one of the top five countries in the world for AI” behind the United States, China, Israel and Britain, Levy said in a television interview last week. He cited the giant H funding round as an example of the dynamics currently being seen in French artificial intelligence.

Levy said roughly 40% of Viva Tech’s tech demos were created using artificial intelligence. AI is “something that… is not only gaining traction, but is already gaining quite mainstream traction,” he said.

During a fireside chat last week, Google’s Manyika said many of the company’s innovations come from engineers in France.

He said Google recently unveiled Gemma AI, a lightweight, open-source model that was painstakingly developed at the US internet giant’s Paris artificial intelligence center.

According to Dealroom, France received roughly 20% of total European AI startup funding in 2023, above the average of 15% of European funding going to AI startups across the bloc.

However, according to Dealroom, France is not the European leader in artificial intelligence, with UK firms attracting more than twice as much investment in AI and genetic AI as France.

French President Macron said Europe’s challenge was to accelerate research and development in artificial intelligence, as well as regulation at an “appropriate scale.”

Last week, the EU approved the Artificial Intelligence Act, a landmark piece of legislation governing artificial intelligence.

Some technology executives have warned that Europe could be hampered by its artificial intelligence ambitions by overly restricting regulation. France was among the countries to criticize the EU’s Artificial Intelligence Act for being too strict on innovation.

Pascal Briere, chief innovation officer at Capgemini, said that while regulation is needed to prevent AI from becoming too powerful, it is important to ensure that new laws such as the AI ​​Act do not accidentally “kill” innovation.

He said regulators should avoid implementing the “precautionary principle,” the idea that AI makers should generally avoid doing things that could cause harm.

“You can’t stop AI—this is just the end of the beginning,” Brier told CNBC. “It won’t stop there.”