Paris (AFP) – Drawing high-powered tech CEOs and a presidential visit, the Vivatech trade fair opened in Paris on Wednesday with a bang as Nvidia boss Jensen Huang announced a major push into Europe. “In just two years, we will increase the amount of AI computing capacity in Europe by a factor of 10,” Huang told a packed hall in a southern Paris convention centre, striding around the stage wearing his trademark leather jacket. He also announced a multi-billion-dollar partnership with French AI champion Mistral AI.
People from around the globe thronged out of packed metro trains into the halls, crammed with stands in blaring colours showing off the latest innovations from startups, tech giants, and more traditional firms. Vivatech regular President Emmanuel Macron was expected later Wednesday, with a walking tour and chats with French tech startups on the agenda. Around 14,000 startups and more than 3,000 investors were expected in Paris, while organisers forecast total visitor numbers to at least equal last year’s 165,000 people.
Nvidia’s Huang took top billing with an opening presentation of almost two hours that drew bouts of rapturous applause from attendees. The US firm’s tie-up with Mistral will see the companies build a cloud computing platform powered by 18,000 of Nvidia’s “Blackwell” high-end chips. Basing hardware in Europe would offer firms the “strategic autonomy they need,” Mistral chief Arthur Mensch told AFP, adding that the project would “strengthen European technological leadership.” Nvidia will also intensify work with existing partners like Germany’s Siemens and France’s Schneider Electric, Huang said. Moreover, it will help build multiple data centres in seven European countries.
Europe is well behind competitors like the United States and China in building up the computing power needed to power generative artificial intelligence. The continent hosts “less than five percent of global computing power, whereas we consume 20 percent,” French President Emmanuel Macron’s office said in a press briefing ahead of the leader’s visit to Vivatech. French digital affairs minister Clara Chappaz said France would “continue to do all we can to make the country the best place in the world to start and develop businesses and build the technology we need.” However, she acknowledged that AI in particular “has never been as political as it is today.”
Nvidia has seen export restrictions slapped on its top-performing chips by Washington, with American politicians leery of ceding their country’s lead in generative AI. Remaining high-tech controls on China are at issue in high-stakes trade talks with Beijing. Huang has warned that the US’ superpower rival is nevertheless making swift strides to catch up. There was little sign of impact from export restrictions on Nvidia’s chip sales in its May earnings release. However, the company has warned the braking effect may be larger in the current quarter.
US politics also preoccupies many European tech leaders and policymakers. Concerns range from Trump’s mercurial tariff policy to the continent’s ability to stand on its own without US tech giants — and the massive gap in funding for AI development between the two sides of the Atlantic. “Sovereignty, which wasn’t as important in the conversation just a year or two years ago, has become an absolutely strategic priority,” Vivatech managing director Francois Bitouzet told AFP. Macron is expected to again emphasise “European technological sovereignty” on Wednesday, the Elysee said. Such remarks from the president would build on his hyping of French and European openness to AI at a Paris global summit in February.
Mistral co-founder Mensch is set to discuss AI with Macron and Huang at a roundtable at the end of the first day of the event, with the three later dining together behind closed doors at the president’s Elysee Palace residence.
© 2024 AFP
