Yesterday, French entrepreneur Xavier Niel, owner of the Iliad technology group, disclosed strategic investments aimed at establishing a “European champion” in the field of artificial intelligence (AI).
Investment & Research Lab
Niel informed the French news agency AFP on Tuesday that the investment, valued at €200 million, is allocated for the acquisition of a supercomputer.
As well as this, Iliad also unveiled the establishment of a distinguished research laboratory in Paris dedicated to AI, already allocated “more than €100 million.” The lab is tasked with the development and dissemination of “artificial general intelligence.”
The objective is to provide an extensive array of services to enterprises aiming to create their own applications in this domain.
Niel is a renowned French businessman in the telecommunications and technology sectors. Not only was he the founder of Iliad and the majority shareholder, which trades under the Free brand and stands as France’s second-largest ISP and third mobile operator, but he also holds significant stakes in the newspaper “Le Monde” and owns Monaco Telecom, Salt Mobile SA, and Eir. Additionally, he is valued at US$10.5 billion as of August 2021.
Three Things
“For artificial intelligence to work, you need three things: researchers, computing power and companies that exploit all of that,” said Niel. “We really need that, to be sure to have things coming out of here, (…) so as not to have all of our data going elsewhere, so that the AI does not depend on algorithms not created here and which are not European,” he continued.
In pursuing this goal, Iliad procured a supercomputer from the American processor behemoth, Nvidia, to equip its cloud computing service subsidiary, Scaleway, with “the greatest computing power” across the continent.
Iliad is set to host its inaugural European conference on AI, with aspirations to make it “the benchmark annual event” on this topic in Europe.
Slated for 17 November, the first edition of the conference will be held at Station F in Paris, the world’s largest startup incubator, which was established by Niel in 2017.
Featured image: Xavier Niel. Credit: cmichel67, Wikipedia
