France’s investment is ‘equivalent’ to Stargate, Macron told journalists.
French president Emmanuel Macron has announced €109bn in investments into artificial intelligence (AI) technology as the European country ramps up to match the US.
The president made the announcement yesterday (9 February), a day ahead of the French AI Summit, a two-day gathering which will bring high profile names such as OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman, Google’s Sundar Pichai, US vice president JD Vance, Taoiseach Micheál Martin, as well as academics, non-governmental organisations and artists under one roof to discuss the future of AI.
The event will be co-chaired by India and is set to enable dialogue between the US, China and other emerging nations invested in AI.
France’s more than €100bn commitment into the technology over the next few years is “equivalent of what the US announced with Stargate,” Macron told journalists on Sunday.
Stargate is a $500bn private sector funding into OpenAI’s infrastructure which was announced by US president Donald Trump earlier last month.
“The first battle for us Europeans is to invest, invest and invest,” Macron said.
“The UAE [United Arab Emirates] is going to make these investments – they’re going to create a huge data centre,” he added.
To promote the summit, Macron posted a series of AI-generated videos on his Instagram account, featuring him in various French pop culture roles. Quipping in between, Macron (not AI-generated), can be seen saying “it’s pretty well done, it made me laugh”.
“More seriously, with artificial intelligence, we can do some very big things; Change healthcare, energy, life in our society.
“France and Europe must be at the heart of this revolution to seize every opportunity and also to promote our principles,” he added.
France is leading the AI game in Europe. The country attracts 22pc of all venture capital investments into AI according to the French AI report, only trailing behind the UK, which leads AI investments at 33pc.
Moreover, AI now accounts for around 20pc of all venture capital funding in Europe, or around $8bn in total inflow of investments.
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Emmanuel Macron, the president of France. Image: Robert Redeker via Flickr.com (CC by 2.0)
