France is aiming to become a global AI superpower — but not without help from U.S. Big Tech

cnbc.com:

PARIS — France is touting itself as the next artificial intelligence superpower.

The Viva Technology conference in Paris last week was buzzing with talk about how far France has come as a leader in AI.

A great deal of chatter surrounded the French AI firm H, previously named Holistic, which raised $220 million in a seed funding round from investors including U.S. tech giant Amazon and Google's billionaire ex-CEO Eric Schmidt.

A common theme for French AI firms receiving large sums of money is that they're adding U.S. tech heavyweights to their shareholder lists.

Earlier this month, France received a flood of new private investments, led by a commitment from Microsoft of 4 billion euros ($4.4 billion), its largest ever into France.

At Viva Tech, AI was everywhere. Past the large, bright pink «VIVA» sign toward the front, there was an entire alley called «AI Avenue,» which was surrounded by U.S. tech firms such as Salesforce and AWS.

Generative AI was on display everywhere — even from companies you wouldn't expect.

For example, French beauty giant L'Oreal showed off an AI-powered beauty assistant called «BeautyGenius» at a large booth near the center of the Porte de Versailles conference venue.

The success of Viva Tech has become symbolically important for France as part of its bid to become a leading tech and AI hub that can rival the likes of the U.S. and China.

«France is the leader on artificial intelligence in Europe,» Bruno Le Maire, France's finance minister, told CNBC's Arjun Kharpal at Viva Tech last week.

He made clear that, while France has a helping hand from U.S. tech giants, «we want to have our own artificial intelligence being created and being developed in France.»

Referring to Microsoft's investment in