Emmanuel Macron announces additional state investments

Measures to transform France into a champion of artificial intelligence. Investment funds, additional credits for training, mission “acculturation” of the French, the President of the Republic announced on Tuesday May 21 a series of measures on this theme during a gathering of players in the sector gathered at the Elysée, on the eve of the opening of the VivaTech show in Paris.

In total, Emmanuel Macron promised an additional 400 million euros to finance the training of artificial intelligence specialists through nine centers of excellence, “AI clusters”. The objective is to go from 40,000 people trained per year to 100,000, he detailed, in front of leaders in the sector such as Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, and Yann Le Cun, director of the laboratory of Meta’s AI.

The Head of State revealed the launch before the end of the year of a new investment fund, a quarter of which was subscribed by the State. The goal is to support the least well financed sectors and those most technologically linked to AI, electronic chips or even the cloud. To facilitate the adoption of this new technology by the French, the president also entrusted a mission “acculturation of citizens” to the National Digital Council, which will have a budget of 10 million euros to organize debates and cafés around artificial intelligence across France. The country will also host a new artificial intelligence evaluation center, which will aim to become one of the largest centers in the world, added the president.