A global AI summit is taking place in Paris this week. With the conference, President Macron wants to show that France and Europe are not behind in investing in AI.
On Feb. 10 and 11, world leaders and top AI leaders will travel to Paris for a summit on artificial intelligence. French President Emmanuel Macron will chair the summit in person, along with Indian President Narendra Modi. The list of attendees includes U.S. Vice President J.D Vance, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and OpenAI chief Sam Altman.
That France is taking on the organization of the summit is no accident. For Macron, this is an important prestige project. Through Mistral, France wants to profile itself as a driving force on the global AI stage. Mistral CEO Arthur Mensch will be one of the summit’s “stars.
Europe needs to invest
Europe must commit to developing its own AI platforms and applications to become less dependent on technology from the United States and China, Macron said Sunday night during a television interview for France 2. This will require investment, however, the French president added.
To set an example, Macron announced on the eve of the summit that he intends to release 109 billion euros to support homegrown AI projects. To that end, Macron can already count on $50 billion from the United Arab Emirates to build an AI data center.
Despite Macron’s lofty ambitions, the proposed budgets show that Europe lives in a different economic reality. Donald Trump recently announced a $500 billion investment plan in the national AI industry. Tech giants such as Amazon and Microsoft can already invest more on their own that what budgets are now on the table in Europe.
Open vs closed AI
The conference will not just be about pennies. There will likely be a strong emphasis on the development of “open” AI systems. Again, that is bacon for Mistral’s mouth, but the Chinese open source model DeepSeek is causing panic in the United States.
“American companies with closed models have a misplaced superiority complex. The open world is catching up with them,” said a French AI researcher from Meta to Financial Times.
Responsible use
With the conference, Macron also hopes to arrive at a globally supported vision around “responsible use” for AI. Europe has recently adopted the AI Act, but in other parts of the world the rules on what can and cannot be done with AI technology are less clearly defined.
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