It was not a red ribbon that was cut on Thursday February 15 to inaugurate Google’s new artificial intelligence (AI) center in Paris. But a giant light bulb that was lit by the CEO of Google, Sundar Pichai, the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, the Minister of Labor, Catherine Vautrin, and the President of the Ile-de-France region, Valérie Pécresse .
Great people to praise the opening of this place, at a time when the race for AI is crystallizing important economic issues. For Google, launched, like most digital giants, in a fierce technological race; and for France, which wants to assert itself as the European leader in the sector.
If this space, installed in the 9e district of Paris, is new, the 300 researchers and engineers who will join it were already working in different teams of the company established in France, such as those of Google DeepMind, Google Research, but also of YouTube or Chrome. They will now be brought together.
“ You will also find a space for dialogue and exchange, and that is the uniqueness of this place: our ambition is for it to be a space for collaboration with all French players in artificial intelligence., declared Joëlle Barral, director of research at Google DeepMind, to present this “hub”, as the company calls it. Objective: to establish new partnerships with French research centers, such as the Institut Curie, whose management Sundar Pichai was to meet on Thursday, or the CNRS, some of whose projects linked to AI will be supported by Google.
“Attract talent”
“Our doors will be open to all types of researchers”announced Sundar Pichai, specifying that the group would bring them “access to advanced tools”. Google also aims, as part of its “Digital Workshops” program launched ten years ago in France, to train 100,000 professionals in AI tools by the end of 2025.
“This hub is an opportunity for our country, which will allow us to attract talent and knowledge”welcomed Bruno Le Maire. “I want to take advantage of this inauguration to say how determined we are that France plays its full role in this revolution”he added. The Google boss was also received at the Elysée by Emmanuel Macron, reports Agence France-Presse.
Google is not the only digital giant to have an artificial intelligence research center in Paris. Facebook, in particular, opened the FAIR (Facebook Artificial Intelligence Research) laboratory in the capital in 2015, founded by Yann Le Cun, pioneer of artificial intelligence.