In a bold move to boost France’s AI capabilities, Xavier Niel, the owner of telecom company Eir, has announced a €200m investment in the country’s artificial intelligence sector. Niel hopes that this investment will entice top French AI engineers, who have left to work for major tech firms abroad, to return home and contribute to the development of AI products that can rival the likes of OpenAI.
The race for AI dominance has become increasingly intense, as countries vie for economic growth and influence by harnessing the potential of this transformative technology. Niel is determined to ensure that France does not become dependent on algorithms or machines located in other countries, as he believes this could lead to the country being dominated by American or Chinese technology giants. “The danger is being dominated by American or Chinese technology ‘because they have the means,'” Niel warned.
Niel’s investment will allocate half of the funds to an independent research lab called ‘Sphere’, based in Paris and run by a non-profit foundation. This lab will bring together top AI researchers and will receive support from Iliad, Niel’s telecommunications group and the parent company of Scaleway, a cloud computing firm. Niel aims to create an environment that will entice French AI researchers, many of whom are already highly regarded worldwide, to stay in France or return if they are currently working abroad.
Iliad has also invested in supercomputing capacity, including the purchase of an Nvidia DGX SuperPOD equipped with 1016 Tensore Core H100 GPUs, which are high-end graphics cards designed for machine learning and generative AI. This powerful supercomputer, located in a data center near Paris, will be used by Iliad’s cloud arm Scaleway to train and operate large-language models. The company claims that this supercomputer is the most powerful in Europe for AI research and will rank 15th globally.
Additionally, Niel plans to use some of the €200m to invest in startups such as Mistral AI and Poolside AI, both of which were founded by individuals from the United States who chose to base their companies in Paris. While these investments are significant, they pale in comparison to the funding that US players have attracted. For example, Microsoft invested $10bn in OpenAI, while Amazon recently announced a potential $4bn investment in OpenAI’s competitor, Anthropic.
Despite the funding gap, Niel remains optimistic. He believes that OpenAI’s expenses primarily stem from paying for the necessary processors to run ChatGPT queries rather than the actual research. Niel’s investment aims to not only support research and development in AI but also create an ecosystem in France that will foster innovation and competition. He is confident that disruptive startups have an advantage over big companies, stating, “When you get rich and big, you’re slow, and that’s why startups always kill big companies.”
This investment by Xavier Niel showcases his commitment to establishing France as a leading player in the AI field. By providing resources, incentives, and infrastructure, he hopes to retain and attract top talent, support groundbreaking research, and ultimately put France at the forefront of AI development. As the race for AI dominance continues, it will be interesting to see how this investment shapes the future of France’s AI landscape and its position in the global AI arena.
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