France to take on US, China with $1.8 billion AI spending
paris — French President Emmanuel Macron promised €1.5 billion ($1.85 billion) of public funding into artificial intelligence by 2022 in a bid to reverse a brain drain and catch up with the dominant US and Chinese tech giants.
The investment is part of an AI strategy laid out by the centrist leader at the elite College de France research institute in Paris and builds on a report that points to the assets and drawbacks of France in the field.
Business-friendly Macron wants to turn France into a “startup nation” and bets that easing labour laws and higher investments technology will create jobs, alleviate the domination of Alphabet’s Google, Facebook and lay out the seeds for Europebased champions.
“There’s no chance of controlling any effects (of these technologies) or having a say on any adverse effect if we’ve missed the start of the war,” the president said in front of a row of ministers and top executives, including BNP Paribas CEO Jean-Laurent Bonnafe.
He spoke between two blackboards covered with complex equations in the main amphitheatre of the institute, founded in the 16th century. The first goal is to make better use of the French higher education system that trains computer engineers and mathematicians only to see them leave for jobs at top US tech companies.
“What a waste,” said Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire earlier on Thursday. “France pays for the training of doctoral students who then head to the United States.” The AI plan was inspired by a government-commissioned report by Cedric Villani, the self-styled “Lady Gaga of Mathematics” and winner of the mathematics equivalent of the Nobel Prize. Villani, who is also a lawmaker in Macron’s party, said in the report the brain drain to Silicon Valley companies showed the excellence of French schools and justified a doubling of their salaries — a proposal that was eventually left out.
The report also pointed to the need for greater collaboration between government research centres and private companies to keep the best minds at home, an idea that was praised by Macron and could lead an easing of the conditions needed for state researchers to work in for private companies. —