France hoping to be Europe's capital for AI

Macron says nation is continent's major player but should 'accelerate' its efforts

France will strive to establish itself as Europe's hub for artificial intelligence by investing in and seeking to rapidly expand the new technology, President Emmanuel Macron said in an interview.

"I think we are number one (in AI) in continental Europe and we have to accelerate," Macron told the United States-based CNBC.

France will encounter regional competition from the United Kingdom and Germany, both of which also harbor aspirations to emerge as Europe's foremost AI hub, said the news outlet.

Euronews cited a report that found more than 57 percent of the most popular AI tools are from the United States, but noted that European countries are quickly catching up.

Enthusiasm surrounding AI has been partly fueled by the viral nature of US company OpenAI's ChatGPT chatbot.

Tech drive

In a demonstration of the French government's support for the nation's tech drive, Macron, Bruno Le Maire, the finance minister, and Jean-Noel Barrot, the digital minister, attended France's annual technology conference Viva Tech last week.

"We will invest like crazy in training and research," Macron told CNBC, noting that France holds a strong position in the AI field, owing to the emergence of a number of startups focused on the technology.

"Believe me this is clear that the US is number one, for good reason because it is a huge domestic market... I want us to clearly bridge the gap and invest much more, develop much more and accelerate much more," Macron said.

US companies like Microsoft and Nvidia currently lead the AI landscape. France, lacking a similar AI giant, aims to develop two or three major "global players", said Macron.

Although France favors strong regulation, it finds certain provisions within the EU's AI Act, which has been approved but is not yet law, are overly restrictive.

Speaking on provisions around generative AI, such as ChatGPT, Barrot said: "My worry is that in the recent past few weeks, the EU Parliament … has taken a very sort of strong stance on AI regulation, using, in some sense, this AI act as a way to try and solve too many problems at once."

Macron added: "From my point of view … I think we do need a regulation and all the players, even the US players, agree with that. I think we need a global regulation."

Le Maire said: "Competition is always a good thing. So we have very close cooperation with the US, but we also want to get access to our own AI intelligence and companies. So I think that having fair competition between the US and Europe and also cooperation on some key devices is good for the US and good for Europe."