“Il faut qu’on se réveille” : pour Edouard Philippe, le retard européen dans l’IA n’est pas une fatalité

In Paris, Edouard Philippe, a presidential candidate, expressed his concern over Europe falling behind in artificial intelligence (AI) to the POLITICO summit on competitiveness. He emphasized the importance of sovereignty regarding European data and its processing, stating that it is not an inevitable fate. Philippe advocated for France and Europe to wake up to the need to catch up with the US and China in AI development.

He called for mobilizing European savings and dedicating significant resources to minimize the lag. Philippe acknowledged the lack of full sovereignty in terms of investors but stressed that even if Mistral, a French startup, was not completely self-sufficient, it was preferable to turn towards Chinese models. He also found it unsurprising that Germans would desire to develop their own AI models, but it should not prevent both countries from pursuing joint projects in strategic markets and domains.

Lastly, Philippe expressed his opposition to a "everyman for himself" approach and supported global regulation of AI to determine how research, development, and usage of this technology should be managed.