At VivaTech, Emmanuel Macron announces 500 million euros for AI. © Shutterstock
As expected, Emmanuel Macron took advantage of his visit to VivaTech to make some announcements in the field of artificial intelligence. “It is the first condition of our independence to technically master these models. We need talent, calculation and resources”, said the head of state. Several announcements have come to illustrate the point.
E. Macron thus indicated that he wanted to double the number of training courses and bring out “five to ten AI clusters” with 500 million euros of additional funding. The hope is to see appear “two to three world-class centers of excellence” In France. This sum would be added to the 1.5 billion euros of the first IA plan of 2018. The president also wishes to support large language models based on French, arguing that the current models have “an Anglo-Saxon bias”. 40 million euros will be allocated to it.
Emmanuel Macron also announced that he wanted to support the development of generative AI with the reinforcement of the Jean Zay calculator thanks to 50 million euros of investment. A new Exascale calculator would also be developed for “respond over time to the training needs of AI giga-models” (205 million). Finally, support for the best start-ups and the launch of a major challenge on general-purpose AI to attract the best talent in France will be increased to the tune of 40 million euros. The State will also adopt a language model intended to assist agents responding to public service messages.
Finally, on societal issues related to artificial intelligence, the President announced the launch of a mission to assess the economic and social impacts of technologies. He wants to mobilize the Global Partnership for AI (PMIA), a research network that brings together France’s major partners to coordinate approaches, including in terms of regulation.