Google, Facebook target Paris as a centre for AI expansion
PARIS: Paris is gaining ground as a European hub for artificial intelligence (AI) research as Alphabet Inc’s Google and Facebook Inc pledge to hire staff and invest in labs, after their top executives met with French President Emmanuel Macron.
Google said it would create an AI lab dedicated to fundamental research on themes like automatic learning, language and a computer’s ability to see, with the aim of applying findings to fields from health to the environment.
The end-goal is to grow this group to a size similar to Google’s existing team of 120 engineers who do applied research in Paris, working on developments for Chrome and YouTube, a company spokeswoman said.
Facebook, which already has an AI lab in Paris, said it would double the team there to 100 people by 2022 and spend 10mil (US$12.2mil) on items including hardware equipment.
Both announcements came as part of a broader series of promises by these companies to increase budgets in France, with Google and Facebook also separately vowing to train citizens on digital tools.
“France has all the assets to succeed. It has top engineers, great entrepreneurs, one of the best education systems in the world, great infrastructure, and successful global companies,” Google chief executive officer Sundar Pichai wrote in a blog post.
He reaffirmed a broader hiring target to reach 1,000 employees at Google’s headquarters in the French capital, from 700 today.
Pichai and Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg are guests of Macron’s on Monday, among 140 top executives from a variety of industries.
In Versailles, company chiefs were invited to attend presentations by ministers, as well as private meetings and dinner with the president – a full-fledged investor roadshow meant to convince CEOs to invest more in France, as they prepare to head to Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum.
SAP SE CEO Bill McDermott is also on the guest list. Europe’s biggest software company said it would invest 2bil over five years in France on research and development, as well as backing and acquiring startups.
SAP also announced on Monday it is buying a French company called Recast.AI that specialises in AI. — Bloomberg