This was one of the wishes expressed by President Macron at the beginning of 2024: to have a 10-year head start on artificial intelligence. An ambition which is part of the economic rearmament policy desired by the French leader.
The development of economic applications is not the only direction pursued by public authorities. The government also intends to encourage the adoption and mastery of artificial intelligence in the field of military uses.
AI already very present on the battlefield
On March 8, the Minister of the Armed Forces, Sébastien Lecornu, formalized the launch of the ministerial strategy on artificial intelligence. Justifying “widely” widespread use of AI on the battlefield in Ukraine, France intends to prepare militarily.
The State does not start from a blank sheet. According to the minister, artificial intelligence “is already a reality at the Ministry of the Armed Forces”. It is now a matter of “moving to an industrial scale” and increasing its use “in administrative tasks as well as in operational missions.”
Through the ministerial AI strategy, the Armed Forces plan to take a step forward in terms of maturity in favor of “Defense AI”. The target of this policy: “guide, anticipate and accelerate the use” of Defense AI.
To this end, AI in the service of the armed forces must meet requirements, namely be “credible and efficient”. For the State, it is therefore necessary to go through the “centralization of the means dedicated to it.”
An AI Agency in place before summer
In order to embody this centralization, the ministry decided to create a new authority, the Ministerial Agency for Defense AI (AMIAD). This must be finalized “before this summer”. Ultimately (but without details), the Agency will have a staff of 300 people, “including many researchers.”
The AMIAD “will have the mission of allowing France to sovereignly master these technologies so as not to depend on other powers”, sets the course for Sébastien Lecornu. The agency will continue research activities, via a center based within the Ecole Polytechnique, and production from the Bruz site (Ille-et-Vilaine).
“The technological leap represented by artificial intelligence is undoubtedly one that will revolutionize the way war is waged. Or even, more importantly, to avoid it like the atom in its time,” says the Minister of the Armed Forces.
The ministry adds that a “multitude of projects around AI are already under development”. Among these, he cites the initiative aimed at acquiring an automated analysis solution for underwater acoustics.
The Army will have its supercomputer in 2025
The AI system aims to assist the work of the golden ears of the French Navy, whose function is “to listen to and analyze the slightest noise picked up at sea in order to detect possible threats.” To power its AI projects, the Armed Forces will have their own supercomputer in 2025.
The supercomputer is described as “simply the largest dedicated to AI and classified in Europe.” Built in Suresnes (Hauts-de-Seine), it will process defense secret data and also so-called “unprotected” data.
In addition, “the supercomputer could also be used by companies in the defense industrial and technological base.” To finance its ambitions in Defense AI, France has planned to devote 130 million euros to the 2024 finance law.
The budget “will be doubled by the end of the 2024-2030 military programming law”, raising the total envelope to 2 billion euros. This funding will go in particular to skills and their development. “In 2026, nearly 800 people will work on AI at the Ministry of the Armed Forces.”