France goals to change into global AI leader with backing from U.S. Big Tech

At Viva Tech, AI was all over the place. Past the big, vibrant pink “VIVA” sign toward the front, there was a complete alley called “AI Avenue,” which was surrounded by U.S. tech firms comparable to Salesforce and AWS.

Generative AI was on display all over the place — even from firms you would not expect.

For instance, French beauty giant L’Oreal showed off an AI-powered beauty assistant called “BeautyGenius” at a big booth near the middle of the Porte de Versailles conference venue.

The success of Viva Tech has change into symbolically vital for France as a part of its bid to change into a number one tech and AI hub that may rival the likes of the U.S. and China.

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

He made clear that, while France has a helping hand from U.S. tech giants, “we would like to have our own artificial intelligence being created and being developed in France.”

Referring to Microsoft’s investment in France, Le Maire said, “Microsoft is way welcome in our country. However the challenge for us is to have our own devices, our own scientists … and we’re working very hard for that.”

France boasts a robust AI research and development ecosystem, home to key facilities just like the Facebook AI Research center from Meta and Google’s AI research hub in Paris, in addition to leading universities.

“France stands as considered one of Europe’s most vibrant innovation hubs,” Etienne Grass, the France managing director of Capgemini Invent, the digital innovation arm of Capgemini, told CNBC. “The nation nurtures a thriving startup scene, marked by significant strides in AI,” Grass added.

Imran Ghory, partner at Blossom Capital, said that while France has an ideal track record in relation to research and academia, it has struggled to funnel quality talent into “great firms.”

AI labs from Meta and Google have “created a training ground for college students and researchers to learn what leading tech firms look and work like from the within,” Ghory said.

“We’re now seeing the fruits of this as many researchers and AI engineers begin spinning out their very own firms.”

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

“It’s insane to have a world where the large giants just come from China and the U.S,” Macron told said on the Elysee Palace. He praised Mistral, the French AI firm backed by U.S. tech giant Microsoft, and H.

Last week, Macron met with Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, Yann LeCun, chief AI scientist of Meta, and James Manyika, Google’s senior vice chairman of tech and society, amongst others, on the Elysee to debate ways to make Paris a world AI hub.

Maurice Levy, CEO of promoting and public relations giant Publicis Groupe, told CNBC’s Karen Tso he thinks France has the potential to change into a top five country for AI development. Levy said France is “determined” to narrow the gap between the U.S. and China and Europe in relation to AI.

France “will be a part of the five biggest countries on AI on this planet,” after the U.S., China, Israel, and the U.K., Levy said in a TV interview last week. He referred to H’s mammoth funding round for example of the momentum surrounding French AI at once.

Levy said roughly 40% of the tech demos at Viva Tech were AI. AI is “something which is … not only taking off, but has already taken off quite massively,” he said.

In a fireplace discussion last week, Google’s Manyika said lots of the innovation the firm has been bringing to the table is sourced from engineers in France.

He said that Google’s recently introduced Gemma AI, a light-weight, open-source model, was developed heavily on the U.S. web giant’s Paris AI hub.

Based on data from Dealroom, France claimed a roughly 20% share of overall European AI startup funding in 2023, higher than the 15% average of European funding that goes into AI startups across the bloc.

France is not the European AI leader, though, in line with Dealroom, with U.K. firms raising greater than double the quantity of each AI and GenAI investment than France.

France’s Macron said the challenge for Europe is accelerating AI research and development while also regulating at “appropriate scale.”

Last week, the EU approved the AI Act, a landmark law regulating artificial intelligence.

Some tech executives warned Europe could hamper its AI ambitions with regulation that is just too restrictive. France has been among the many countries to have criticized the EU AI Act for being too restrictive in relation to innovation.

Pascal Brier, Capgemini’s chief innovation officer, said while regulation is required to make sure AI is not left to change into too powerful, it is vital to make sure latest laws just like the AI Act don’t by accident “kill” innovation.

He said regulators should avoid implementing the “principle of precaution” — the concept that AI makers should avoid doing things that may do harm, as a rule.

“There isn’t any way you’ll be able to stop AI — it’s only the top of the start,” Brier told CNBC. “It isn’t going to stop there.”