For the Wednesday opening of VivaTech, the largest European tech fair, Emmanuel Macron presents a plan to support French AI and more generally “French tech” start-ups, which have run out of funding after two successful years. .
On the program for this seventh edition: more than 2,200 exhibitors, conferences by major international bosses, as well as 10,000 company representatives, despite an entry ticket at 620 euros and stands that sometimes cost more than 100,000 euros.
But it is also an event intended to popularize tech, with spectacular or playful innovations. We will discover a ski mask with augmented reality, an exoskeleton for caregivers, a start-up that wakes up drowsy drivers, a Van Gogh animated by artificial intelligence, roller robots, drones, hydrogen vehicles. .. Nearly 100,000 visitors are expected for the general public day on Saturday.
Cantor of the “start-up nation” since 2017, the Head of State will walk the aisles as every year to meet entrepreneurs before a speech scheduled around 5:00 p.m. and devoted to artificial intelligence and innovation.
His intervention at the Porte de Versailles is part of a week devoted to French industrial sovereignty, from medicines to aviation.
“In the field of artificial intelligence, I want France to be the champion and position itself at the forefront of this new industrial revolution. Tomorrow, at the VivaTech show, I will make announcements so that we can speed up funding, training, In Europe, we must also move forward to regulate and master this technology,” he tweeted on Tuesday.
Specifically, Emmanuel Macron is expected to announce new funding for French-style AI, including French language models, as well as measures to encourage investment in innovation.
On the regulatory side, he wants to “pre-empt” certain provisions of the future European regulation on AI to put them in place in France without delay, in particular the obligation to inform the user that content is produced by artificial intelligence, has specified the Elysée.
At his side on stage, Arthur Mensch, CEO of Mistral, an AI start-up founded by big names from Google and Meta (Facebook) and which has just raised 105 million euros, one of the French records in the sector. .
Upstream, the Head of State also invited experts on the subject to lunch on Friday. Including the head of AI research at Facebook Yann Le Cun, who pleaded for the development of models in “open source” (open code) and must also intervene at VivaTech.
But the real star of the show this year will undoubtedly be Elon Musk, the boss of Twitter, Tesla and SpaceX, who offers himself the dome of the Palais des Sports and its 4,000 seats for a highly anticipated speech, France hoping in particular to be chosen for a future Tesla factory.
An emblematic choice for a tech boss: it was in this performance hall that, in the 1990s and 2000s, during the heyday of the Apple Expo in Paris, Steve Jobs came to present the new products of the apple brand. in front of thousands of fascinated fans.
06/14/2023 03:59:48 – Paris (AFP) – © 2023 AFP