“We need more big European companies, and I think Mistral AI can be one of them,” President Macron said of France’s leading AI companies. Microsoft recently invested 15 million euros ($16.3 million) in Mistral.
Macron also praised newly launched French AI startup Company H, which announced this week that it had raised a whopping $220 million in its first funding round.
“I think it’s good for the U.S. ecosystem to have a European ecosystem that is so vibrant and so vibrant and so ambitious,” he said.
Macron spoke to CNBC as tech leaders arrived in Paris to attend the VivaTech innovation trade fair. On Tuesday, the Elysee Palace hosted a group of business leaders and engineers in the field of AI on the eve of the show.
The fair and meetings come on the heels of a new wave of private investment in the country, led by Microsoft’s largest-ever investment in France of 4 billion euros.
“If AI companies decide to locate in Europe, European governments will find themselves in the same situation as the US and Chinese governments,” he said.
“Our challenge for AI is to accelerate, innovate and invest, while also regulating at the right scale,” he added.
The European Union (EU) passed the first major regulatory rule, the EU Artificial Intelligence Bill, in March, putting it ahead of the US in regulating artificial intelligence.
President Macron also defended the European Union’s strict online privacy regulations, saying the EU is deliberately trying to weaken the dominant position of US tech giants such as Google and Meta through a type of regulatory competition strategy. He rejected the widely held view in Washington.
“I think that’s wrong,” Macron said. “If I want to guarantee your privacy, your data retention, your cloud views, this is a sovereign and very important democratic issue.”
He likened allowing American tech giants to operate under American regulations in Europe to allowing French banks in the United States to ignore American banking regulations.
“The important thing is that when you’re operating in the United States, we don’t regulate you, but when you’re operating in continental Europe, just make sure you respect European rules.”
But when it comes to China, President Macron has indicated that he believes some of the US’s tech regulations have gone too far.
France, for example, does not believe that TikTok, the giant social media app owned by China’s ByteDance, poses a significant national security threat, he said.
Under a recently passed US law in the name of national security, ByteDance will be required to sell TikTok in order to continue operating on US devices.
“We have not adopted this approach and are neutral in terms of technology, nationality and players,” Macron said.
“When it comes to trade, innovation and the economy, I think China is a competitor. Unfortunately, we need to work together more to encourage China to respect international rules, rather than assuming that they don’t respect them.” “We should work on it,” he said.
“They are competing and are very good at creating and producing innovation,” he said. “We have been too naive until now, and today Europe is reducing the productivity of its economy. [than] America”
