Facing American and Chinese firms, Europe can and must find a way to benefit from artificial intelligence, according to Emmanuel Macron, who is organising a world summit with India in Paris on Monday and Tuesday. Photo: Shutterstock

Facing American and Chinese firms, Europe can and must find a way to benefit from artificial intelligence, according to Emmanuel Macron, who is organising a world summit with India in Paris on Monday and Tuesday. Photo: Shutterstock

No longer a prophet in his own country, where he no longer has a stable majority to govern, the French president Emmanuel Macron is organising a world summit on artificial intelligence in Paris on Monday and Tuesday, together with India. The aim is to make France and Europe - but especially France - a focal point for investment and projects.

Sunday was as sad as a grey February Sunday can be when the French president, Emmanuel Macron, himself shared on X the low cost deep fakes which show Macron in different get-ups and different roles, each as ridiculous as the next. Then he said: "Well done, yes, it's quite well done and it made me laugh. But more seriously, with artificial intelligence, we can do great things. Change health, energy, life in our society. France and Europe must be at the heart of this revolution to seize every opportunity and to push forward the principles that we believe in. That's the aim of this summit on artificial intelligence. It starts tomorrow in Paris! So I'm counting on you.”

Caught between the Americans who, with their new president Donald Trump, have decided to inject $500bn into artificial intelligence, not counting the already massive investments by Big Tech, and the Chinese who have shown with Deepseek that they still have potential for rapid advancement, does Europe have a chance of imposing itself or even just imposing its values in the accelerated development of artificial intelligence? This is the question that this AI summit will not answer. For that to happen, the Europeans would have to have succeeded in breaking down all the barriers in a market that is ‘single’ only in its name. And the new European Commission has only just begun to promise that this time it is going to do something concrete to make it happen.

The merit of the summit will be that it will bring together a very broad community and 'force' it to exchange views, to discuss, to implement joint projects at European level, and to ask the right questions. Luxembourg will be represented by the prime minister, (CSV), and the deputy minister under the PM responsible for media and communications, (CSV). Also attending will be the Chinese vice premier responsible for industry and information technologies, Zhang Guoqin, who has been appointed "special representative of president Xi Jinping", a sign of the importance attached to the event by the Middle Kingdom, which had already proposed a Global AI Governance Initiative in October 2023. The US vice president, JD Vance, will likewise attend.

Its merit will also be to show that Europe and France have the talent, the projects, the entrepreneurs and the will to play their part in this sector that will affect the entire global economy in one way or another, whether in the discovery of new medicines, in the revolution in transport or energy, in the creation of new industrial processes.

Ahead of this major demonstration of know-how and desire, France has announced:

- A major investment project by the United Arab Emirates, involving the construction of an AI-focused campus, including a giant data centre. This investment could amount to between €30bn and €50bn.

- a third stage in its national strategy, including 35 "ready-to-use" sites that have been identified for data centre projects in mainland France, to be unveiled on Monday.

- An "IA Clusters" programme to create a French-style "MIT", funded to the tune of €360m. Nine centres of training and excellence in AI have been created, with the aim of training 100,000 people by 2030, and placing at least one establishment of excellence among the top international rankings. France will also be developing its talent passport and the "French tech visa", funding new AI chairs of excellence and launching a "Choose France for research" unit to support talented researchers wishing to set up in France.

- The French telecommunications group Iliad has announced a €3bn investment in AI infrastructure, including data centres and computing capacity. Through its subsidiary Opcore, Iliad plans to deploy several hundred megawatts of capacity in the short term, with the ambition of reaching several gigawatts in the long term.

- In addition, Iliad has teamed up with Mistral AI to offer its 15.5m subscribers in France the "Chat pro" model.

- The French state-owned investment bank Bpifrance will invest €10bn in AI between now and 2029, to support the development of this technology and its adoption by businesses, it said in a press release on Friday. The direct investments will go to startups, players specialising in infrastructure dedicated to AI and the components needed to develop this technology, such as chips.

Discussions at the summit, the full programme of which can be found , will focus on the following themes: global governance of AI, regulation of AI, security of AI, access to technology, economic opportunities for responsible and ethical AI, and the impact of AI on public policy, particularly in the areas of health, education and justice.

The "AI Convergence" challenges, launched at the end of November 2024 to promote international AI initiatives serving the common good, will have the opportunity to be highlighted: the first results of these 35 challenges, which address crucial societal issues such as improving the quality of life, education, the fight against global warming and trust in the public space, will increase the number of demonstrations and roundtables at the Grand Palais museum and Station F startup campus.

Read the original French-language version of this news report /