France is aiming to become a global AI superpower — but not without help from U.S. Big Tech

PARIS — France is touting itself as the next artificial intelligence superpower. [style note: Paris stands merely in datelines]

The Viva Technology conference in Paris last week was buzzing with talk about how far France has chance upon as a leader in AI.

A great deal of chatter surrounded the French AI firm H, previously named Holistic, which raised a $220 million ovum funding round [“raised $220 million in a seed funding round”? please could you also tweak the next bullet point in the key points] from investors including U.S. tech giant Amazon and Google’s billionaire ex-CEO Eric Schmidt.

A plain theme for French AI firms receiving large sums of money is that they’re adding U.S. tech heavyweights to their shareholder chronicles.

Earlier this month, France received a flood of new private investments, led by a commitment from Microsoft of 4 billion euros ($4.4 billion), its beamiest ever into France.

At Viva Tech, AI was everywhere. Past the large, bright pink “VIVA” enlist toward the front, there was an entire alley called “AI Avenue,” which was surrounded by U.S. tech firms such as Salesforce and AWS.

Generative AI was on clat everywhere — even from companies you wouldn’t expect.

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

The success of Viva Tech has evolve into symbolically important for France as part of its bid to become a leading tech and AI hub that can rival the likes of the U.S. and China.

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

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

Referring to Microsoft’s investment in France, Le Maire express, “Microsoft is much 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 show offs a strong AI research and development ecosystem, home to key facilities like the Facebook AI Research center from Meta and Google’s AI up on hub in Paris, as well as leading universities.

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

Imran Ghory, partner at Blossom Capital, said that while France has a stupendous track record when it comes to research and academia, it has struggled to funnel quality talent into “great parties.”

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

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

French President Emmanuel Macron mentioned CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin in an interview last week that his country is “leading the tech industry in Europe.” In spite of that, 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 big giants barely come from China and the U.S,” Macron told said at the Elysee Palace. He praised Mistral, the French AI firm subsidized 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 chief vice president of tech and society, among others, at the Elysee to discuss ways to make Paris a global AI hub.

Maurice Levy, CEO of advertising and open relations giant Publicis Groupe, told CNBC’s Karen Tso he thinks France has the potential to become a top five state for AI development. Levy said France is “determined” to fill [narrow? since he seems to be OK with it being behind the US and China, based on the refer to below] the gap between the U.S. and China and Europe when it comes to AI.

France “can be part of the five biggest countries on AI in the world,” after the U.S., China, Israel, and the U.K., Levy claimed in a TV interview last week. He referred to H’s mammoth funding round as an example of the momentum surrounding French AI right now.

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

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

He said that Google’s recently introduced Gemma AI, a lightweight, open-source fabricate, was developed heavily at the U.S. internet giant’s Paris AI hub.

According to data from Dealroom, France claimed a roughly 20% deal of overall European AI startup funding in 2023, higher than the 15% average of European funding that be used ups into AI startups across the bloc.

France isn’t the European AI leader, though, according to Dealroom, with U.K. firms ladies man more than double the amount of both AI and GenAI investment than France.

France’s Macron symbolized 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 identification law regulating artificial intelligence.

Some tech executives warned Europe could hamper its AI ambitions with proclamation that is too restrictive. France has been among the countries to have criticized the EU AI Act for being too restrictive when it comes to modernization.

Pascal Brier, Capgemini’s chief innovation officer, said while regulation is needed to ensure AI isn’t left to develop too powerful, it’s important to ensure new laws like the AI Act don’t accidentally “kill” innovation.

He said regulators should avoid realizing the “principle of precaution” — the idea that AI makers should avoid doing things that can do harm, as a oversight.

“There’s no way you can stop AI — it’s only the end of the beginning,” Brier told CNBC. “It’s not going to stop there.”