Emmanuel Macron will attend the VivaTech show in Paris on Wednesday to announce new support for French artificial intelligence and innovation companies, the Élysée said, as the technology sector experiences a funding crisis after two years of easy money.
On the occasion of the largest European event in the sector, the Head of State will have to make a series of announcements, including additional funding, support for French-speaking databases for the main linguistic models or even regulatory proposals, without waiting for the future European regulation about AI.
“In the field of artificial intelligence, I want France to be the champion and to be at the forefront of this new industrial revolution. Tomorrow, at the VivaTech fair, I will make announcements so that we can accelerate funding, training, research in the European . , we must also move to regulate and master this technology,” he tweeted on Tuesday.
This visit is part of a week dedicated to technological and industrial sovereignty, which begins on Tuesday in the Ardèche with a trip dedicated to the production of medicines in France and will end by evoking carbon-free aviation before the Paris Air Show.
Emmanuel Macron should, in particular, explain that he intends to “revoke” certain provisions of the future European regulation on artificial intelligence in order to implement them in France without waiting for the long European process, such as the obligation to inform the user that content is produced by an AI, said the Elysee.
At his side will be especially present Arthur Mensch, CEO of Mistral, a new French AI start-up founded by big names from Google and Meta (Facebook), which has just raised close to 100 million euros.
Expand the “AI plan”
This will be an opportunity for Emmanuel Macron to expand the “AI plan” of 2018, initially endowed with 1.5 billion euros and which did not refer to generative AI, which has become essential since the launch of ChatGPT at the end of 2022.
The President of the Republic will have to discuss more broadly the financing of innovation, while the Renaissance deputy Paul Midy will present to the government his proposals to channel the savings of the French towards the sector, via tax reductions.
The president will therefore take stock of the difficulties of “French technology”, which is returning to earth after two years of generosity in financing that has overvalued some of those “unicorns” that he requested.
Among the avenues studied: a new “Tibi” plan to mobilize institutional investors worth several billion euros, in particular to finance “deeptech”, these new industrial companies in the health, defense or climate sectors, that have become the priority of the executive.
Source: BFM TV
