‘Long live AI’: Macron pitches France as place to build AI over UK and US French President Emmanuel Macron has told artificial intelligence (AI) firms they “have to choose Europe and France” for developing AI, as he closed the first day of a summit on the technology.
The UK’s Technology Secretary Peter Kyle is in Paris for the summit, and said he would be pointing to the UK’s recently published AI Opportunities Action Plan, which set out plans to boost AI infrastructure in the UK, including billions of pounds of new investment, and more widely introduce AI in the public sector to streamline work.
Ahead of the summit, Mr Macron had announced around £91 billion in investment in French AI projects over the coming years, and said the country was “back in the race, thanks to this summit”, before teasing that an announcement on a new EU AI strategy around regulation and investment in computing capacity would be announced on Tuesday.
In a pitch to big US firms such as Google and OpenAI – both of which are at the summit – Mr Macron said France would “work together” with others “whatever the geopolitics will be”, adding France and the EU would introduce “smart regulation”.
But closing the first day of the summit, President Macron used his role as host to steal the show, with a passionate pitch for France as a rival to not only the UK, but also the US, when it came to AI development and infrastructure.
