Paris boosts AI companies, says Europe must learn to innovate before regulating

French President Emmanuel Macron and Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire have announced several initiatives to bolster artificial intelligence in France and Europe, saying the bloc “must learn to innovate before regulating”.

Speaking at VivaTech, the largest tech event in Europe, which brought together more than 11,000 startups and attracted 150,000 visitors, Le Maire listed initiatives for the next European Commission.

“Europe is in a state of economic lethargy; it must be awakened. It is technology and artificial intelligence that will allow us to revive the European economy and awaken our productivity,” Le Maire said.

He added that “Europe must learn to innovate before regulating […] It must rediscover the taste for risk”.

He said the paramount task for the next European Commission will be to design a “simplification law of existing rules and directives to streamline the lives of entrepreneurs.”

As reported by Euractiv, France, Germany, and Italy’s economy ministers already pledged such a European law in April.

Le Maire also claimed that another challenge ahead of the AI ecosystem will be one of talents.

Training AI specialists

President Macron announced on Tuesday a series of measures to support the AI industry including €400 million to fund the training of AI specialists through nine “clusters of excellence”.

The aim is to increase the number of trained professionals from 40,000 to 100,000 annually.

The nine clusters of French universities were announced as winners on Wednesday (22 May) of a call for expressions of interest by France 2030, the €54 billion French investment plan.

Macron also announced that France will establish a new investment fund to support underfunded sectors closely tied to AI, such as electronic chips and cloud computing.

The fund will be backed by 25% with public money from the French state, but the full amount has not yet been disclosed.

Macron asked European counterparts to join the initiative and to “start by a Franco-German initiative”.

Similarly, Le Maire said that fostering an AI ecosystem in Europe needed financing.

“Starting tomorrow, I will meet with my German counterpart to establish a capital markets union,” he stated. Until now, such an initiative has been extensively discussed but has not fully materialised.

To enhance computational power for AI, Le Maire repeated Macron’s plan to facilitate the establishment of data centres by simplifying access to land and regulatory procedures.

(Théophane Hartmann | Euractiv.fr)

Read more with Euractiv