SVE NEWS & FRANCE24.COM Sharing Series — France is back in the AI race, Macron tells Paris summit

France’s recent announcement of 109 billion euros’ worth of private investment in artificial intelligence has put the country “back in the AI race”, French President Emmanuel Macron told political leaders and tech tycoons gathered for a two-day summit at Paris’s lavish Grand Palais on Monday.

France’s President Emmanuel Macron (C) delivers a speech during a closing event for the first day of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Action Summit, at the Grand Palais, in Paris, on February 10, 2025. © Ludovic Marin, AFP

French President Emmanuel Macron told major world leaders gathered at an AI summit in Paris on Monday that France was “back in the AI race”. His remarks came following the announcement that the country would be receiving AI private investments worth a total of 109 billion euros over the coming years.

Talking to the state, Macron called on attendees to choose Europe for their business needs, saying that clean electric power distinguished France in addressing AI’s vast energy consumption.

“I have a good friend on the other side of the ocean saying ‘drill, baby, drill.’ Here, there is no need to drill. It’s plug, baby, plug,” he said.

Heads of state, top government officials, CEOs and scientists from around 100 countries are participating in the two-day international summit from Monday.

High-profile attendees include US Vice President JD Vance, on his first overseas trip since taking office, and Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing.

The summit, which gathers major players such as Google, Microsoft and OpenAI, aims at fostering AI advances in sectors like health, education, environment and culture.

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A global public-private partnership named “Current AI” will be launched to support large-scale initiatives that serve the general interest.

The Paris summit “is the first time we’ll have had such a broad international discussion in one place on the future of AI”, said Linda Griffin, vice-president of public policy at Mozilla. “I see it as a norm-setting moment.”

Nick Reiners, senior geotechnology analyst at Eurasia Group, noted an opportunity to shape AI governance in a new direction by “moving away from this concentration of power amongst a handful of private actors and building this public interest AI instead”.

French organisers are also looking for the summit to ignite major investment announcements in Europe, positioning the region as a viable contender in an industry increasingly shaped by a growing US-China rivalry.

(FRANCE 24 with AP and Reuters)

Sources from: FRANCE24.COM