With a large ecosystem of partners in France in both the public and private sectors, Microsoft already has a big stake in the country. But last May, the company announced it will be upping the ante with an investment of €4bn to accelerate the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud technologies.
The company said that much of the money will go towards developing a datacentre using the latest generation of technology and in training citizens on AI. Both improved infrastructure and enhanced AI skills figure prominently in France’s National Strategy for AI and the recommendations of the French Commission for Artificial Intelligence, which aim to position France as a leader in both development and use of AI.
In addition to building a new datacentre near Mulhouse, Microsoft will use some of the funding to expand its datacentre capacity in Paris and Marseilles. The company announced in May 2024 that it plans to have a total of 25,000 GPUs available for AI workloads by the end of 2025. The expanded datacentre capacity should provide a boost across the economy as AI and cloud are being used in all industries in France.
In her keynote at the event in March, Corine De Bilbao, president of Microsoft France, said that if AI is applied the right way, it can double France’s economic growth between now and 2030. Not only will AI enable faster innovation, but it will also help organisations in the country face the talent shortage and reinvent manufacturing processes. Infrastructure alone is not enough – a skilled population and a healthy ecosystem are also needed. This is why, according to De Bilbao, Microsoft will train one million French people by 2027 and will help 2,500 startups during the same timeframe.
The recommendations of the French Artificial Intelligence Commission include training in different forms, such as holding ongoing public debates on the economic and societal impacts of AI, adding AI to higher education programmes in many areas of study, and training people on specific AI tools. Microsoft intends to help in these areas and train office workers, so they know how to prompt AI tools to get the best results, and so they understand what happens with their data and how it’s processed. The company will also train developers and make sure companies of all sizes have the skills they need to use Microsoft’s latest tools.
Microsoft is already involved in the startup community – for example, it’s one of the partners of Station F, which claims to be the world’s largest startup campus. A thousand startups are hosted in Station F, which offers more than 30 programmes to help entrepreneurs.
Philippe Limantour, CTO of Microsoft France, told Computer Weekly: “We have a dedicated programme in Station F called Microsoft GenAI Studio that supports select startups. And we help startups with our technology and by providing training.”
AI comes with a new set of security threats. But it also delivers some new tools that can be used to protect organisations and individuals. According to Vasu Jakkal, corporate vice-president of Microsoft Security, business and technology leaders are particularly concerned with leakage of sensitive data, and indirect prompt injection attacks. Jakkal said in her keynote that all datacentres will be protected with new measures to counter attacks specific to AI – attacks on prompts and models, for example.
Jakkal also spoke about how GenAI can be used to boost cyber security. For example, Microsoft Security Copilot, which was launched last year, helps not only to detect security incidents and respond to them, but also to find the source.
She said during her keynote that Microsoft detected more than 30 billion phishing emails target customers between January and December 2024, a volume of attacks that far surpasses what teams can handle manually. She said a brand new set of phishing triage agents in Microsoft Security Copilot can now handle some of the work to free teams to focus on more complex cyber threats and take proactive measures.
Scientific research and engineering were also big topics of conversation during the event with Antoine Petit, CEO of the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), saying during a panel discussion that CNRS opened a group called AI for Science and Science for AI. Petit said that the centre recognises the importance not only of conducting more research in AI but also in applying AI to help scientists in other research. But he said the technology is still in its infancy so nobody knows exactly how it will affect science.
Alain Bécoulet, deputy director general of ITER, who was on the same panel, said that scientific organisations need to free researchers from some of the more mundane tasks so they can play their role as creators. AI may offer a way of providing the information that is both necessary and sufficient, so that researchers and engineers can fulfil their roles.
A topic that permeated all discussions at the event was the ethical use of AI in France. Limantour told Computer Weekly that Microsoft has been focused on responsible AI for a long time. This is not only for reasons of compliance, but it’s also because the company thinks responsible use of AI is the best way to get value out of the technology. “The future is bright for people who are trained to use AI safely,” Limantour said.
