French President Emmanuel Macron has launched a tech offensive at the Paris AI Summit, promising extensive investment and support for the development of artificial intelligence.
Starting on February 6 and running to February 11, France has been holding a conference for action on AI, combining science, economics, geopolitics and culture, concluding with an international summit on February 10 to 11.
Macron has signalled he wanted his country to match the US and China, which have been leading on AI development.
During the AI week in France, major announcements have been made regarding AI investments in the country.
On February 9, during a special interview on TV station France 2, ahead of the international summit, Macron announced investments in France of “€109 billion in the coming years”.
He said it was the equivalent for France of what the US had announced with Stargate, the programme launched by US President Donald Trump worth $500 billion (€484.8 billion).
At the summit, many world leaders were due to make an appearance, including European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, US Vice President JD Vance and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Alongside them, tech figures such as Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, Microsoft vice chair and president Brad Smith and Google CEO Sundar Pichai were also set to take part.
Between €30 billion and €50 billion will come from MGX, a tech sovereign wealth fund from the United Arab Emirates, which will invest in a huge AI data centre that will also require a lot of energy, it was reported.
France said it believed it had an advantage in that because of its nuclear power and was thus suitable to host such infrastructures.
Je dis Cocorico !
En France, on produit l'une des électricités les plus décarbonées au monde. On a le réseau le plus sûr et le plus stable. Et on exporte massivement. C'est une chance pour l'IA : les data centers bâtis chez nous seront propres. pic.twitter.com/iai5Hxy2hj
— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) February 9, 2025
“France is the leading country in Europe in the field of artificial intelligence,” Macron told the newspaper Le Parisien on February 8.
In 2018, Macron had already launched an AI strategy, the “Villani Mission”, investing in the technology. That has started to pay dividends, according to the French Government, which pointed out it is the leading country in Europe for foreign investment projects in AI.
Worldwide it, ranks around the fifth most important country in AI, outpacing many with bigger economies.
France has created 35 sites where AI centres can be built, in co-operation with its energy and transport sector.
Canadian firm Brookfield Asset Management told Le Figaro recently that it would invest €20 billion in France by 2030, of which €15 billion will be dedicated to the construction of data centres.
Sikander Rashid, Brookfield’s European director, said: “France has excellent engineering skills for this type of installation. It is now the most attractive country in Europe to host these infrastructures.”
French investors, such as the Iliad Group and Mistral, have also promised to invest further in France.
Macron told France 2 on February 9 there was a need for international regulation on AI but with “”moderation”.
“It must be done through partnerships between public and private actors. And that good behaviours emerge,” he said.
“What we want is for the actors to say when it is a creation by artificial intelligence,” he responded, when questioned at length about the use of AI to spread disinformation or to spread false images.
To illustrate this need, he published a compilation of deepfakes, faked videos featuring his face and voice and made by artificial intelligence (AI), on his Instagram account.
“It’s quite well done, it rather made me laugh,” he said, adding he wanted to talk “more seriously” about the potential of AI, which he said could “change health, energy, life in our society”.
“France and Europe must be at the heart of this revolution to seize all their opportunities, and to push the principles that are ours,” Macron said.
In December 2024, the start-up group France Digitale, alongside a coalition of representatives of Europe’s innovative ecosystems, wrote an open letter calling for barriers to private funding to be broken down in order to remain competitive with the rest of the world.
With China’s breakthrough of the DeepSeek AI start-up, pressure on Europe has been rising rapidly.
The European Union is almost 100 years off hitting its 2030 AI goals, a report published by the European Commission has determined. https://t.co/sZca1WZJfe
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) July 4, 2024
