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French President Emmanuel Macron attended the country’s premier technology event Viva Tech. Macron told CNBC France will “invest like crazy” into A.I.

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PARIS — France is making a major push to position itself as Europe’s hub for artificial intelligence, throwing its weight behind the fast-growing and much-hyped technology.

“I think we are number one [in AI] in continental Europe, and we have to accelerate,” French President Emmanuel Macron told CNBC’s Karen Tso last week.

Countries are looking to position themselves as AI hubs, because the technology is seen as revolutionary and therefore of strategic importance to governments around the world. AI is viewed as impacting industries from finance to healthcare, but has also been caught in the middle of the broader technology battle playing out between China and the U.S.

Hype around AI has been partly sparked by the viral nature of U.S. firm OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot.

AI was the phrase on everyone’s lips at France’s annual technology conference Viva Tech, from startups to established technology firms, along with companies from industries as diverse as cosmetics and banking.

Macron, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire and Digital Minister Jean-Noel Barrot attended the event, adding the government’s backing to France’s tech push.

“We will invest like crazy on training and research,” Macron told CNBC, adding that France is well-positioned in AI due to its access to talent and start-ups forming around the technology.

French President Emmanuel Macron calls for global A.I. regulation

While the U.S is seen as the leader in AI by many measures, France hopes to catch up.

“Believe me this is clear that the U.S. is number one, for good reason because it is a huge domestic market … I want us to clearly bridge the gap and invest much more, develop much more and accelerate much more,” Macron said.

Paris’ ambitions face tough competition even within the European Union.

“France definitely has a chance to be the leader in Europe, but it faces stiff competition from Germany and the U.K.,” Anton Dahbura, Co-Director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Assured Autonomy, told CNBC via email.

U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in the past week made his pitch for Britain to become a global AI center.

Dahbura said that, for France to find success, it will need to “use AI to build on the economic areas it’s already strong in,” such as manufacturing and pharmaceutical.

“It’s a key time to be strategic to identify specific areas of distinct competency and invest heavily in AI to build an edge,” Dahbura said.

French A.I. companies in focus

U.S. companies currently dominate the conversation around AI, with names such as Microsoft — which invested in OpenAI — and chipmaker Nvidia staying top of mind.

France doesn’t have an AI giant like the U.S., but wants to create two or three “big global players” in the technology, according to Macron.

it is banking on its startups to grow quickly. Underscoring the potential and hype of AI developments, four-week-old French startup Mistral AI raised 105 million euros to fund the company. A number of other local startups were showing off their wares at Viva Tech.

Global A.I. regulation in focus

Part of France’s pitch to be an A.I. hub leads on regulation around the technology.

The European Parliament greenlit the EU AI Act, a wide-sweeping first-of-its-kind regulation on artificial intelligence. It is not yet law, but, if passed, would bring a risk-based approach to regulation across the EU.

France has typically been seen as a proponent of strong regulation on technology — but it has taken issue with parts of the EU AI Act related to generative AI, the type of technology that underpins OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which it sees as too stringent.

“My worry is that in the recent past few weeks, the EU Parliament … has taken a very sort of strong stance on AI regulation, using, in some sense, this AI act as a way to try and solve too many problems at once,” Barrot, France’s digital minister, said on the provisions around generative AI.

France needs to work with the U.S. on A.I. regulation, finance minister says

France desires a global regulation on A.I., which it hopes to achieve through the G7 group that includes the U.S. and Britain, as well as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

“From my point of view … I think we do need a regulation and all the players, even the U.S. players, agree with that. I think we need a global regulation,” Macron said.

U.S. seen as frenemy

France sees the U.S. as both a rival and an ally. French and European companies will try to compete with U.S. giants like Microsoft and Google, but Washington’s by-in is required for any kind of global regulation .

“Competition is always a good thing. So we have a very close cooperation with the U.S., but we also want to get access to our own AI intelligence and companies. So I think that having a fair competition between the U.S. and Europe and also a co-operation on some key devices is good for the U.S. and good for Europe,” French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, told CNBC.

“On regulation as well, I think this is absolutely vital to have an in-depth discussion with the American authorities on the best way of regulating artificial intelligence.”

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How TikTok’s rise sparked a short-form video race

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How TikTok’s rise sparked a short-form video race

TikTok’s grip on the short-form video market is tightening, and the world’s biggest tech platforms are racing to catch up.

Since launching globally in 2016, ByteDance-owned TikTok has amassed over 1.12 billion monthly active users worldwide, according to Backlinko. American users spend an average of 108 minutes per day on the app, according to Apptoptia.

TikTok’s success has reshaped the social media landscape, forcing competitors like Meta and Google to pivot their strategies around short-form video. But so far, experts say that none have matched TikTok’s algorithmic precision.

“It is the center of the internet for young people,” said Jasmine Enberg, vice president and principal analyst at Emarketer. “It’s where they go for entertainment, news, trends, even shopping. TikTok sets the tone for everyone else.”

Platforms like Meta‘s Instagram Reels and Google’s YouTube Shorts have expanded aggressively, launching new features, creator tools and even considering separate apps just to compete. Microsoft-owned LinkedIn, traditionally a professional networking site, is the latest to experiment with TikTok-style feeds. But with TikTok continuing to evolve, adding features like e-commerce integrations and longer videos, the question remains whether rivals can keep up.

“I’m scrolling every single day. I doom scroll all the time,” said TikTok content creator Alyssa McKay.

But there may a dark side to this growth.

As short-form content consumption soars, experts warn about shrinking attention spans and rising mental-health concerns, particularly among younger users. Researchers like Dr. Yann Poncin, associate professor at the Child Study Center at Yale University, point to disrupted sleep patterns and increased anxiety levels tied to endless scrolling habits.

“Infinite scrolling and short-form video are designed to capture your attention in short bursts,” Dr. Poncin said. “In the past, entertainment was about taking you on a journey through a show or story. Now, it’s about locking you in for just a few seconds, just enough to feed you the next thing the algorithm knows you’ll like.”

Despite sky-high engagement, monetizing short videos remains an uphill battle. Unlike long-form YouTube content, where ads can be inserted throughout, short clips offer limited space for advertisers. Creators, too, are feeling the squeeze.

“It’s never been easier to go viral,” said Enberg. “But it’s never been harder to turn that virality into a sustainable business.”

Last year, TikTok generated an estimated $23.6 billion in ad revenues, according to Oberlo, but even with this growth, many creators still make just a few dollars per million views. YouTube Shorts pays roughly four cents per 1,000 views, which is less than its long-form counterpart. Meanwhile, Instagram has leaned into brand partnerships and emerging tools like “Trial Reels,” which allow creators to experiment with content by initially sharing videos only with non-followers, giving them a low-risk way to test new formats or ideas before deciding whether to share with their full audience. But Meta told CNBC that monetizing Reels remains a work in progress.

While lawmakers scrutinize TikTok’s Chinese ownership and explore potential bans, competitors see a window of opportunity. Meta and YouTube are poised to capture up to 50% of reallocated ad dollars if TikTok faces restrictions in the U.S., according to eMarketer.

Watch the video to understand how TikTok’s rise sparked a short form video race.

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Elon Musk’s xAI Holdings in talks to raise $20 billion, Bloomberg News reports

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Elon Musk's xAI Holdings in talks to raise  billion, Bloomberg News reports

The X logo appears on a phone, and the xAI logo is displayed on a laptop in Krakow, Poland, on April 1, 2025. (Photo by Klaudia Radecka/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Elon Musk‘s xAI Holdings is in discussions with investors to raise about $20 billion, Bloomberg News reported Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The funding would value the company at over $120 billion, according to the report.

Musk was looking to assign “proper value” to xAI, sources told CNBC’s David Faber earlier this month. The remarks were made during a call with xAI investors, sources familiar with the matter told Faber. The Tesla CEO at that time didn’t explicitly mention any upcoming funding round, but the sources suggested xAI was preparing for a substantial capital raise in the near future.

The funding amount could be more than $20 billion as the exact figure had not been decided, the Bloomberg report added.

Artificial intelligence startup xAI didn’t immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment outside of U.S. business hours.

Faber Report: Elon Musk held call with current xAI investors, sources say

The AI firm last month acquired X in an all-stock deal that valued xAI at $80 billion and the social media platform at $33 billion.

“xAI and X’s futures are intertwined. Today, we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution and talent,” Musk said on X, announcing the deal. “This combination will unlock immense potential by blending xAI’s advanced AI capability and expertise with X’s massive reach.”

Read the full Bloomberg story here.

— CNBC’s Samantha Subin contributed to this report.

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Alphabet jumps 3% as search, advertising units show resilient growth

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Alphabet jumps 3% as search, advertising units show resilient growth

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai during the Google I/O developers conference in Mountain View, California, on May 10, 2023.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Alphabet‘s stock gained 3% Friday after signaling strong growth in its search and advertising businesses amid a competitive artificial intelligence environment and uncertain macro backdrop.

GOOGL‘s pace of GenAI product roll-out is accelerating with multiple encouraging signals,” wrote Morgan Stanley‘s Brian Nowak. “Macro uncertainty still exists but we remain [overweight] given GOOGL’s still strong relative position and improving pace of GenAI enabled product roll-out.”

The search giant posted earnings of $2.81 per share on $90.23 billion in revenues. That topped the $89.12 billion in sales and $2.01 in EPS expected by LSEG analysts. Revenues grew 12% year-over-year and ahead of the 10% anticipated by Wall Street.

Net income rose 46% to $34.54 billion, or $2.81 per share. That’s up from $23.66 billion, or $1.89 per share, in the year-ago period. Alphabet said the figure included $8 billion in unrealized gains on its nonmarketable equity securities connected to its investment in a private company.

Adjusted earnings, excluding that gain, were $2.27 per share, according to LSEG, and topped analyst expectations.

Read more CNBC tech news

Alphabet shares have pulled back about 16% this year as it battles volatility spurred by mounting trade war fears and worries that President Donald Trump‘s tariffs could crush the global economy. That would make it more difficult for Alphabet to potentially acquire infrastructure for data centers powering AI models as it faces off against competitors such as OpenAI and Anthropic to develop largely language models.

During Thursday’s call with investors, Alphabet suggested that it’s too soon to tally the total impact of tariffs. However, Google’s business chief Philipp Schindler said that ending the de minimis trade exemption in May, which created a loophole benefitting many Chinese e-commerce retailers, could create a “slight headwind” for the company’s ads business, specifically in the Asia-Pacific region. The loophole allows shipments under $800 to come into the U.S. duty-free.

Despite this backdrop, Alphabet showed steady growth in its advertising and search business, reporting $66.89 billion in revenues for its advertising unit. That reflected 8.5% growth from the year-ago period. The company reported $8.93 billion in advertising revenue for its YouTube business, shy of an $8.97 billion estimate from StreetAccount.

Alphabet’s “Search and other” unit rose 9.8% to $50.7 billion, up from $46.16 billion last year. The company said that its AI Overviews tool used in its Google search results page has accumulated 1.5 billion monthly users from a billion in October.

Bank of America analyst Justin Post said that Wall Street is underestimating the upside potential and “monetization ramp” from this tool and cloud demand fueled by AI.

“The strong 1Q search performance, along with constructive comments on Gemini [large language model] performance and [AI Overviews] adoption could help alleviate some investor concerns on AI competition,” Post wrote in a note.

WATCH: Gemini delivering well for Google, says Check Capital’s Chris Ballard

Gemini delivering well for Google, says Check Capital's Chris Ballard

CNBC’s Jennifer Elias contributed to this report.

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