From Bloomberg, September 26:
- The tycoon plans a future research lab to be located in Paris
- His cloud group partners with Nvidia for supercomputing power
Billionaire Xavier Niel is investing €200 million ($212 million) in artificial intelligence, split between a future research lab to be located in Paris, cloud supercomputing capabilities powered by Nvidia Corp. hardware, and funding for startups.
The effort aims to lure top French AI engineers — who left to work for big tech firms — back to their home country, where they can build AI products to rival the likes of OpenAI, Niel said in an interview.
The race for AI dominance has intensified geopolitical rivalries as countries seek to harness the technology’s potential for economic growth and influence. Policymakers have rushed to intervene to ensure that their countries aren’t sidelined in the process.
“We don’t want our cloud and AI to be based on algorithms or machines localized in other countries,” Niel said. The danger is being dominated by American or Chinese technology “because they have the means,” he said.
The telecom tycoon believes there is still room for disruption coming from Europe in the AI space. “When you get rich and big, you’re slow, and that’s why startups always kill big companies,” he said.
Half of the investment will be allocated to an independent research lab in Paris, run by a nonprofit foundation. Codenamed “Sphere,” it will bring together top AI researchers and will be supported in part by Niel’s telecommunications group Iliad, parent of cloud-computing firm Scaleway, according to people familiar with the plan.
“When you go to any AI lab in the world, you’ll find that there are always researchers from French schools,” such as top universities Polytechnique and ENS, Niel said. “Our challenge is how to make them stay here, or come back if they are abroad.”....
....MUCH MORE
We'll just rework the phrase "Go big or go home" into "Go big and come home."
Previously on French AI:
July 17, 2023: "...Big Tech Alumni building AI startups in Paris"June 11: "Report: France's Macron Seeks Seat at AI Table"
And back into the mists of time (well, the twenty-teens):
"French government officials advocate for a €500m investment in blockchain technology"
The country might be better served adding to the €1.5 billion that President Macron has pledged for research in Artificial Intelligence.
But I might be biased....Related:
France: "For Emmanuel Macron, AI is more than a technological revolution. It is a political revolution of hope in an increasingly dystopian future"
"The Race is On for European AI Research"
Profit From The Global Riot Control Industry
"The Top-10 French Artificial Intelligence Startups"
The Creator of the iPod and the iPhone Seeks to Dethrone Tech’s Giants
It’s a crisp January morning in Paris’s 13th Arrondissement, and outside Station F, the former freight terminal that is the epicenter of France’s startup scene, twentysomethings climb out of cars hailed using iPhone apps.
Tony Fadell’s Next Act? Taking on Silicon Valley—From Paris
"‘The Disruptors’ — Unique insight into Europe’s 1,600 AI startups (Part 2)"
I was about to headline this link "The 1600 AI Startups you must know" to play off the "672 thought leaders you must follow on Twitter" or the "37,000 young people who want to take your job" articles but then realized our wary-yet-intrigued readers are not the type of people who respond well to someone saying they 'must' do anything.
