This is the stake on which relies the strategy for the development in France of artificial intelligence (AI) presented by president Emmanuel Macron in a speech given at the Collège de France on March 30. The strategy seeks to turn France into a major stakeholder in the AI industry. The scheme announces that the French government will spend 1.5 billion Euros in artificial intelligence over 5 years, including 500 million Euros in private funding.

It's by betting on "human intelligence and the attraction of the best researchers" that Emmanuel Macron announced the implementation of this national program for AI coordinated by the INRIA (National Research Institute for Computer Science and Automatism) in cooperation with additional research entities and universities with the objective to double training in AI. And as the president underlines, "We must particularly focus on training". The first challenge of artificial intelligence on a global scale is talent."

A strategy including all of the scientific and university community

The plan will involve all of the scientific community, and rely on a network of dedicated institutes present in various places in France to form a research hub at the best of international level. A program of individual chairs will be added to the strategic means to attract more foreign researchers. In this regard, the French president announced the "implementation of a series of call for projects designed as Make our planet great again, which helped select the best global projects and differentially fund the best research in the industry and thus attract the best teachers, teachers-researchers for a period of their career or a year, attract the best research project through these selections to turn France into a place for attractiveness and international competitiveness in the industry".

 

To know more 

- interview of the French president to the American magazine Wired focusing on new technologies:
https://www.wired.com/story/emmanuel-macron-talks-to-wired-about-frances-ai-strategy/

- the president's speech at the Collège de France (in video, in French):
http://www.elysee.fr/videos/new-video-247/

- transcript of the speech (in French):
http://www.elysee.fr/declarations/article/transcription-du-discours-du-president-de-la-republique-emmanuel-macron-sur-l-intelligence-artificielle/

 

Picture: @Etienne Laurent Pool via reuters