An artificial intelligence race is heating between the United States and China, but does not count in Europe.
This is the case of President Emmanuel Macron in France, this week while his country hosts an artificial intelligence summit in Paris, where government leaders, technology managers and academic experts met on Monday to discuss the fears and hopes that surround the AI technology.
“There is a race to climb,” Macron said in France 2 television on Sunday evening under the steel and glass roof of the Grand Palais, the exhibition room in which France and India collaborated to keep the summit.
“Are we completely behind the curve? No, “Macron insisted while he urged Europe to invest heavily in his AI skills.
“We respect and want to work with the United States, we want to work with China, but we don’t want to depend on anyone,” he added later.
The participants in the summit, which take place on Tuesday, include Sam Altman, CEO of Openi; Zhang Guoqing, deputy prime minister of China; And vice -president JD Vance, who is on his first trip abroad.
France sees the summit as a crucial moment to stimulate artificial intelligence investments in Europe, to involve consumers with rapid movement technology and position Europe as a better contender-not a leading regulator a global competition in which the United States and China is so far the greatest players.
In similar encounters in other countries, attention was often focused on the potential risks of the AI in terms of economic upheaval, disinformation and national security – such as a 2023 summit in Great Britain that felt the potentially “catastrophic” damage of technology.
Those concerns remain. “Much of the last decade has been a story of technology that is making us to pieces,” said Fei-Fii Li, a professor of computer science at Stanford and co-director at the Institute of Ai Centerato on the University, in the comments opening of the summit. “Artificial intelligence is on another crossroads in this path.”
But global mood has also moved when the IA becomes widespread and the countries move to build the next technology giant.
Last month, President Trump announced the so -called Stargate initiative that could eventually invest up to $ 500 billion in the next four years in the computer infrastructure for Power Ai and China shocked the world of technology with Deepseek, a company that developed one powerful artificial intelligence in a fraction of the cost of its American counterparties.
“If we want to grow, jobs and progress, we must allow innovators to innovate, the manufacturers to build and develop the developers”, wrote Altman in an essay of opinion in the French newspaper Le Monde on Saturday. “The risk of inaction is too big to be ignored.”
(The New York Times sued Openi and its partner, Microsoft, for violation of the copyright of news related to artificial intelligence systems. The two companies have denied the statements of the cause.)
Mr. Macron’s priority is to ensure that Europe does not remain behind the United States and China by overloading its development.
He recognized the need for a regulation – for example, to protect the intellectual property – but he also launched his fellow citizens on the benefits of the AI, calling it “a technological and scientific revolution as few that we have seen before” and a “moment of opportunity by humanity. “
“If we adjust before innovating, we will have no innovation,” he said.
Investors at the conference shared its point of view, but they warned that Europe was not as competitive as the United States or China because it had layers of regulations, higher taxes and less financial incentives.
France, Macron said, is well positioned to guide the push of the AI in Europe, in part because he obtains about 70 percent of his electricity from nuclear energy, allowing them to support the hungry data centers of power without jeopardizing the its objectives of climate change.
He added that during the summit over 100 billion euros of investments relating to the AI in France would be announced, including an agreement with the United Arab Emirates to finance a data center and artificial intelligence campus in France.
Macron also discussed in favor of what he called “European and French patriotism” to develop the next AI leaders by repeatedly exhorting people to download a chatbot developed by Mistral, the main start-up of the AI France, and praising The company’s partnership with Stellantis to equip the car manufacturer vehicles with Mistral technology.
But the conference also put an annoying question bare for world leaders: how to stay on top of a growing arms race of the AI while it manages the associated fears, ranging from losses of jobs to the disinformation of “deepfake”.
“I want to find the balance between encouraging the innovation of artificial intelligence in the EU and mitigating the most serious risks,” said Henna Virkkunen, executive vice -president of the European Commission responsible for technological sovereignty, security and democracy.
The largest technological companies in the world, led by US giants such as Meta, Google and Openai, are pushing for rapid development with a lighter regulation and a global embrace of the idea that the IA will serve, rather than damaging, humanity .
But the regulators, the activists of civil society and trade union leaders at the Paris summit have felt a widespread concern between millions of people whose work and lifestyle will be more affected by rapid transformation.
“Are we losing a sense of shared fate of all human beings?” The Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, Vatican Secretary of State said. “We must guarantee that the IA understands its potential to improve the situation of humanity”.
Airbus, the largest aircraft manufacturer in the world, said he had integrated artificial intelligence into many of his operations, including development and safety. It is one of the over 60 companies that have joined a Champions League initiative Euai who invites Europe to become a global leader Ai.
As one of the largest manufacturers of defense equipment in the world, Airbus has increasingly integrated the IA in its defense applications, raising ethical questions.
At the top, Guillaume Faury, CEO of Airbus, recognized that “things are moving so quickly”, but they said that global leaders had to make sure that the IA “must be good for society”.
This includes not letting the IA take the driving seat, he added. “Keeping the human in the tour for us is essential: having someone who is a human being is responsible,” said Faury.