Artificial intelligence: France, winner of the EuroHPC European programme

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The French ministry in charge of research announced the election of the AI Factory France project to become part of the EuroHPC programme, an EU strategic initiative aiming at developing the best computing infrastructures for AI. The AI factory EuroHPC programme is fully part of this initiative since its aim is to give Europe cutting edge computation means, optimised to answer the needs in artificial intelligence.

“This choice confirms the French excellence in artificial intelligence and high-performance computation” was glad to declare the ministry of higher education and research, before adding that this is true acknowledgment improving the momentum kickstarted by the AI Summit held in early February in Paris, at the initiative of the French presidency. According to promoters of the project, this project “confirms France as key player of AI development in Europe”. It should help develop more efficient services and computation infrastructures.

Team France

Together with the ministry, France Universités, the Conference of Presidents of Universities, expressed its satisfaction regarding the designation of AI Factory France as winner of the EuroHPC programme. The Conference explains that this project is supervised by GENCI (“Grand équipement national de calcul intensif”), a very large research infrastructure, public operator created in 2007 to “democratize the use of digital simulation through high-performance computing, associated today with the use of artificial intelligence and soon with prototype quantum computing devices”.

In addition to GENCI, the project is driven by a “Team France”, including several academic players, partners of innovation and industrial players, such as INRIA, CNRS or CEA, as explains France Universités.

An ecosystem of artificial intelligence

Concretely, the AI Factory France programme will make available “its know-how and computational infrastructures”, including the Jean-Zay supercomputer, operating since 2019, and the “future Alice-Recoque exascale supercomputer, planned for 2026”, declared the ministry of research. The idea is to develop “an ecosystem of sovereign artificial intelligence, supporting both public research and industrial needs”.

The AI Factory France project indeed ambitions to attract a whole AI ecosystem “strong and decentralised, including start-ups, SMEs, major groups, research entities, data centers, universities, business schools and engineering schools”. According to the ministry, with this creation, France showcases its “capacity to attract talents, businesses and strategic investments, and provides a framework for common work in a rich, structured and dynamic environment”. More precisely, France Universités explains that AI Factory France will provide “a range of services such as computation capacities, data spaces and AI models, training offers and economic development that may answer the needs of strategic sectors such as health, aeronautics, energy, defence and mobility, and others.

Taking roots in Europe

The overall project has a double ambition: to improve the attractiveness of France and Europe in terms of AI. The idea is to support European competitiveness before global competition with, specifically, a strengthening of “a French expertise and technical support centre which will help users access various services to better exploit these complex technologies”. This centre, says the ministry of research, “represents a special asset in Europe and should provide support to all AI Factories for the deployment of their infrastructures and services”. With this initiative, France “confirms is ambition to be the spearhead of research and innovation in artificial intelligence, while deepening its roots in Europe”, concluded the ministry.