It wasn’t a red ribbon that was cut Thursday, February 15, to inaugurate Google’s new artificial intelligence (AI) center in Paris, but a giant light bulb lit by Google CEO Sundar Pichai, French economy minister Bruno. Le Maire, French Minister of Labor, Catherine Vautrin and President of the Ile-de-France region, Valéry Pacres.
Great people to appreciate the opening of this place, at a time when the race for AI is crystallizing important economic issues. Google, like most digital giants, has embarked on a fierce technological race; And France wants to show itself as a European leader in this field.
If installed in this space, 9E The district of Paris, which is new, will join three hundred researchers and engineers working in different teams of the company founded in France, such as Google DeepMind, Google Research, as well as YouTube and Chrome. They will now be brought together.
” You will also find space for dialogue and exchange, and that is the uniqueness of this place: our ambition is to be a space for collaboration with all the French players in the field of artificial intelligence”, announced Google DeepMind’s director of research, Joëlle Barral, to present this “hub,” as the company calls it. The objective: to establish new partnerships with French research centers, such as the Institut Curie, whose management Sundar Pichai was due to meet on Thursday, and the CNRS, some projects linked to AI will be supported by Google.
“Attract Talent”
“Our doors will be open to all types of researchers”Sundar Pichai announced, clarifying that the group would bring them “Access to Advanced Tools”. Google also aims to train 100,000 professionals in AI tools by the end of 2025, as part of its Digital Workshops program launched in France nearly a decade ago.
“This “hub” is an opportunity for our country, which will allow us to attract talent and knowledge”Welcome to Bruno Le Maire. “I want to take advantage of this inauguration to show how determined we are that France play her full role in this revolution”he added. The Google boss was also welcomed at the Elysée by Emmanuel Macron, reports Agence France-Presse.
Google isn’t the only digital giant with an artificial intelligence research center in Paris. For example, Facebook opened the FAIR (Facebook Artificial Intelligence Research) laboratory in the capital in 2015, founded by artificial intelligence pioneer Yan Le Kun.
