It is a pillar of Emmanuel Macron’s strategy to develop cybersecurity. According to information from Europe 1, the president will inaugurate, in mid-February, the “cyber campus”, a 13-storey tower in the heart of the La Défense district, near Paris. The building will bring together private and public players in the fight against cybercrime. Construction deadlines will be met, and Europe 1 was able to visit the site in preview.
Combining private and public skills
Tables, shelves and even chairs have just arrived in shared office spaces. This is “made in France” equipment because the challenge of this tower is to make it a flagship, even a totem of French cybersecurity. In total, the building of 26,600 square meters of workspace will bring together 90 companies, or 1,800 experts from this ecosystem. Its main objective is to convince private companies and public institutions, such as the Ministry of the Interior or the Armed Forces, to work side by side, or even together. They have already reserved several workstations.
Gathering these skills is not an easy task, as explained by the director general of the cyber campus, Michel Van den Berghe. “At the beginning, I was told that gathering competitors in a single place would not work since expertise is rare, and that concentrating it in a single place would be too dangerous. Bringing together the State, the private, research, it will never work”, he says at the microphone of Europe 1.
The cyber campus will be a 13-storey tower in the center of the La Défense district.
Credits: Computer generated image / cyber campus
“Together, we are stronger than everyone in their corner”
However, the project will see the light of day. “The big banks are there, insurers have come with them, industry 4.0 and medical. We have sectors that have come together to work, share, since we believe that together we are stronger than everyone else in his corner”, adds the director general of the cyber campus.
Beyond the real estate project, the cyber campus is also a place for event projects. In the entrance hall, the largest screen in the world, more than 40m long, is being finalized. Terraces, a roof top, a bar and a restaurant too, will help unite the different entities. A way to anchor these virtual professionals in reality.