Artificial Intelligence in France: new support programmes available

The 8th VivaTech fair attracted all French and international players of new technologies from 21 to 25 May 2024 at the Parc des Expositions, in Porte de Versailles, Paris. VivaTech, which defines itself as “the #1 European event for startups and technology”, met in 2024 an incredible success, beating new attendance records. According to the dedicated website, VivaTech 2024 attracted over 165,000 visitors, a 10% increase compared with last year. The event also attracted 13,500 startups “which had the chance to establish business relations in over 25 fields of activities and make contact with more than 2,000 investors”. With representation in 120 countries and the organisation of 40 national stands, including Japan (country of the year), “the worldwide impact of VivaTech 2024 has truly been remarkable”.

AI, a national strategy

The French government information website explains that as early as 2018, and thanks to a buoyant context, artificial intelligence has been the target of a national strategy as part of the France 2030 plan. Close to 2.5 billion euros were specifically directed towards the development of this technology, “seen as an accelerator and differentiator of innovation”. Two phases led to the design of this strategy:

• the first phase consisted in first structuring the existing national ecosystem to turn France into “the first ecosystem for AI in Europe”. The country now has “a globally acknowledged ecosystem of research and technology”;
• a second phase launched in 2022 aims at “disseminating AI in the economy to improve industrial competitiveness and individual and collective well-being”. A total of 560 million euros in public funding is dedicated to “the consolidation of institutions of excellence of French AI institutions”. According to the ministry in charge of research, three main levers were activated as part of this plan: training and research, support to an “offer at the state of the art” (the state of knowledge of a given field at a given time), the bridging between offer and demand in AI.

A strategy that bears its fruits

The last statements from the French president are thus at the heart of this second phase. The information website of the Elysée Palace first reminds that this strategy “has born its fruits”. This strategy “developed a network of AI interdisciplinary institutes, supported chairs of excellence in this field, funded doctoral programmes and invested in the calculus capacity of public research”.

In the wake of the first successes, president Macron presented new orientations “to go even farther and turn France into an AI power, attracting the biggest talents, securing our own calculus powers and our infrastructures, and by boosting the collective adoption of an AI that is secure and built with values”. In concrete terms, this commitment will take the following forms:

• the announcement of nine winners of the IA-clusters call for expressions of interest. These are centres for excellence in research and training in artificial intelligence, implemented in major French universities covering all the territory, and supported by up to 360 million euros (France 2030 plan);
• the implementation of new programmes to improve the support of the State in Artificial intelligence. They include: a call for projects to “boost the use of generative artificial intelligence in the economy”, a programme about assessing advanced AIs, a European centre of expertise in generative AI, a call for project aiming at improving the offer of cloud services to bring together the players of AI and cloud technology, and a call for projects dedicated to the transition in cultural sectors to “support the quick adaptation of players of culture and medias to AI technologies”.

Concrete results

A few key figures provided by both the ministry in charge of research and the presidency website show the vitality of AI in France:

• 80 research labs are affected by the AI topic;
• over 600 startups work on AI (+24% between 2021 and 2023);
• 76 startups dedicated to “generative” (sound, text, video, image);
• 13,500 jobs developed in the sector;
• 3.2 billion euros raised in 2022 by companies in AI;

So many indicators that turned France into the 1st country in Europe for foreign investment projects in AI and 1st host country for centre of research and decision in AI of global leaders.

Explore more

• On the French government’s information website
• On the website of the ministry of higher education

On the French presidency website