France's AI salon

Hi all, this is Mark in London. When Maurice Levy assembled a group to visit the French presidential palace last week to discuss AI, he inte [View in browser]( [Bloomberg]( Hi all, this is Mark in London. When Maurice Levy assembled a group to visit the French presidential palace last week to discuss AI, he intentionally included tech luminaries from both America and China. But first... Three things you need to know today: • China has set up a new [$47.5 billion chip fund]( • Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is already [in Taipei ahead of Computex]( • Elon Musk’s xAI raised [$6 billion for its OpenAI challenge]( US and China, sans tensions “Something which you hardly do in the US,” Levy said in an interview, about bringing tech leaders from the world’s two biggest economies together. He’s the co-founder and president of VivaTech, an organization that runs an eponymous French business confab that’s grown into a proper tech global gala since its start in 2016. It draws tens of thousands of attendees - even Elon Musk [showed up](, albeit via video - to endless rows of startups, novel gadgets and prototypes and attention-hungry vendors. It's like CES, only with much better fashion. A major theme of this year's event was France asserting itself as a third AI hub outside of the US and China. Homegrown Mistral AI is a year-old OpenAI rival [reportedly nearing]( a $6 billion valuation, and its founders appeared on multiple panels. A Parisian startup called H [announced]( a $220 million seed round to build AI models of its own, raising money from billionaires Bernard Arnault, Eric Schmidt, Xavier Niel and Yuri Milner. Its young CEO was added as a last-minute VivaTech speaker. Thomas Wolf, one of the three French founders of AI firm Hugging Face, called these mega-rounds “great” but noted that these startups were taking on a lot of risk. He predicted that H wouldn't be the last French AI upstart to net an eye-popping early round. “There’s enough money,” he said on the sidelines of VivaTech. There was little concern at the conference about soaring valuations in AI, particularly in France, where newcomers have scant revenue and little history of outmuscling overseas titans. Instead, the mood suited VivaTech's name. At the presidential palace gathering, former Google boss Schmidt argued forcefully for Europe to invest even more in AI and hit the brakes on regulation, according to Levy. Onstage at VivaTech, Schmidt made a similar point while waving his fists. “If France doesn’t succeed, Europe will not be a major player in the development of a new form of intelligence, which would be a real tragedy,” he said. The audience applauded. President Emmanuel Macron skipped VivaTech due to [political unrest](. But he took to X to call for France to become an "undisputed leader in AI," listing a set of priorities that included funding research centers and opening nationwide "AI cafes." He [congratulated H]( on its funding round. In an interview with CNBC, [Macron said]( he would prefer Mistral AI “grow on their own” rather than be acquired by partner Microsoft Corp. or another American firm. Earlier in the month, Macron secured [big commitments]( from Microsoft and Amazon.com Inc. for cloud-computing in his country. Still, ahead of VivaTech, the president told local techies that France needed more computing power for its homegrown AI. “That’s the arms race of the 21st century,” said Dali Kilani, co-founder of FlexAI, another new Parisian startup, who attended the meeting with Macron. Some at VivaTech offered details on how Europe might run this race with methods beyond simply stockpiling chips and data centers. Mistral CEO Arthur Mensch described his open-source AI models as an alternative to US dominance. (Though Meta Platforms Inc. releases similar open-source tools.) Anne Bouverot, a businesswoman overseeing France’s upcoming AI Safety Summit, said that event will focus on bridging divides on issues like copyright and securing computing resources for public institutions. Levy, the chairman and former CEO of French ad giant Publicis Group, sees Paris as a neutral ground for the new cold war in tech. He had Baidu Inc. CEO Robin Li come to the Élysée Palace meeting and speak at VivaTech. While Chinese tech companies didn't have a major presence at the conference, Levy plans to keep welcoming them. In 2026, VivaTech will celebrate its tenth year. “My dream would be that the whole planet meets in Paris for maybe a week,” Levy said. “It will be the Olympics of AI.” He wants Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates to speak. It’s not clear which of France’s new AI darlings will be around — or still French companies — by then. But they’ll certainly be invited.—[Mark Bergen](mailto:mbergen10@bloomberg.net) The big story Narendra Modi is betting his legacy on a two-year, half-trillion-dollar infrastructure push that includes upgrading India’s digital realm with [more data centers, faster connectivity and expanded mobile payments.]( One to watch AT&T CEO John Stankey joins Caroline Hyde and Ed Ludlow following his comments on the company's multi-year growth strategy at the JPMorgan technology conference. He discusses slowing demand for handsets, always-on connectivity, and why he thinks AST is more "consumer-centric" than Starlink. Get fully charged TSMC’s overseas chip factories will be a boon for Taiwan, argues minister who sees [more upside than threat in the international expansion.]( China’s dominance of the EV industry is something President Xi Jinping [asked for a decade ago.]( Billionaire Mukesh Ambani is about to [enter Africa with a telecoms venture in Ghana.]( Trucking startup Gatik is showing the best way to introduce autonomous vehicles might be to just [make it as easy as possible.]( More from Bloomberg Get Bloomberg Tech weeklies in your inbox: - [Cyber Bulletin]( for coverage of the shadow world of hackers and cyber-espionage - [Game On]( for reporting on the video game business - [Power On]( for Apple scoops, consumer tech news and more - [Screentime]( for a front-row seat to the collision of Hollywood and Silicon Valley - [Soundbite]( for reporting on podcasting, the music industry and audio trends - [Q&AI]( for answers to all your questions about AI Follow Us Like getting this newsletter? 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