France is aiming to become a global AI superpower — but not without help from U.S. Big Tech
French President Emmanuel Macron speaks during a meeting with members of the AI sector at the Elysee Presidential Palace in Paris, France, on May 21, 2024.
Yoan Valat | Afp | Getty Images
PARIS — France is touting itself as the next artificial intelligence superpower.
The Viva Technology conference in Paris last week was buzzing with talk about how far France has come as a leader in AI.
A great deal of chatter surrounded the French AI firm H, previously named Holistic, which raised $220 million in a seed funding round from investors including U.S. tech giant Amazon and Google’s billionaire ex-CEO Eric Schmidt.
A common theme for French AI firms receiving large sums of money is that they’re adding U.S. tech heavyweights to their shareholder lists.
Earlier this month, France received a flood of new private investments, led by a commitment from Microsoft of 4 billion euros ($4.4 billion), its largest ever into France.
AI everywhere at Viva Tech
At Viva Tech, AI was everywhere. Past the large, bright pink “VIVA” sign toward the front, there was an entire alley called “AI Avenue,” which was surrounded by U.S. tech firms such as Salesforce and AWS.
Generative AI was on display everywhere — even from companies you wouldn’t expect.
For example, French beauty giant L’Oreal showed off an AI-powered beauty assistant called “BeautyGenius” at a large booth near the center of the Porte de Versailles conference venue.
The success of Viva Tech has become symbolically important for France as part of its bid to become a leading tech and AI hub that can rival the likes of the U.S. and China.
“France is the leader on artificial intelligence in Europe,” Bruno Le Maire, France’s finance minister, told CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal at Viva Tech last week.
He made clear that, while France has a helping hand from U.S. tech giants, “we want to have our own artificial intelligence being created and being developed in France.”
Referring to Microsoft’s investment in France, Le Maire said, “Microsoft is much welcome in our country. But the challenge for us is to have our own devices, our own scientists … and we are working very hard for that.”
France boasts a strong AI research and development ecosystem, home to key facilities like the Facebook AI Research center from Meta and Google’s AI research hub in Paris, as well as leading universities.
“France stands as one of Europe’s most vibrant innovation hubs,” Etienne Grass, the France managing director of Capgemini Invent, the digital innovation arm of Capgemini, told CNBC. “The nation nurtures a thriving startup scene, marked by significant strides in AI,” Grass added.
Imran Ghory, partner at Blossom Capital, said that while France has a great track record when it comes to research and academia, it has struggled to funnel quality talent into “great companies.”
AI labs from Meta and Google have “created a training ground for students and researchers to learn what leading tech companies look and work like from the inside,” Ghory said.
“We’re now seeing the fruits of this as many researchers and AI engineers begin spinning out their own companies.”
Vying for tech leadership
French President Emmanuel Macron told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin in an interview last week that his country is “leading the tech industry in Europe.” However, he noted Europe is “lagging behind” the U.S. and that the continent needs more “big players.”
“It’s insane to have a world where the big giants just come from China and the U.S,” Macron told said at the Elysee Palace. He praised Mistral, the French AI firm backed by U.S. tech giant Microsoft, and H.
Last week, Macron met with Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, Yann LeCun, chief AI scientist of Meta, and James Manyika, Google’s senior vice president of tech and society, among others, at the Elysee to discuss ways to make Paris a global AI hub.
Maurice Levy, CEO of advertising and public relations giant Publicis Groupe, told CNBC’s Karen Tso he thinks France has the potential to become a top five country for AI development. Levy said France is “determined” to narrow the gap between the U.S. and China and Europe when it comes to AI.
France “can be part of the five biggest countries on AI in the world,” after the U.S., China, Israel, and the U.K., Levy said in a TV interview last week. He referred to H’s mammoth funding round as an example of the momentum surrounding French AI right now.
Levy said roughly 40% of the tech demos at Viva Tech were AI. AI is “something which is … not only taking off, but has already taken off quite massively,” he said.
In a fireside discussion last week, Google’s Manyika said a lot of the innovation the firm has been bringing to the table is sourced from engineers in France.
He said that Google’s recently introduced Gemma AI, a lightweight, open-source model, was developed heavily at the U.S. internet giant’s Paris AI hub.
According to data from Dealroom, France claimed a roughly 20% share of overall European AI startup funding in 2023, higher than the 15% average of European funding that goes into AI startups across the bloc.
France isn’t the European AI leader, though, according to Dealroom, with U.K. firms raising more than double the amount of both AI and GenAI investment than France.
Innovation versus regulation
France’s Macron said the challenge for Europe is accelerating AI research and development while also regulating at “appropriate scale.”
Last week, the EU approved the AI Act, a landmark law regulating artificial intelligence.
Some tech executives warned Europe could hamper its AI ambitions with regulation that is too restrictive. France has been among the countries to have criticized the EU AI Act for being too restrictive when it comes to innovation.
Pascal Brier, Capgemini’s chief innovation officer, said while regulation is needed to ensure AI isn’t left to become too powerful, it’s important to ensure new laws like the AI Act don’t accidentally “kill” innovation.
He said regulators should avoid implementing the “principle of precaution” — the idea that AI makers should avoid doing things that can do harm, as a rule.
“There’s no way you can stop AI — it’s only the end of the beginning,” Brier told CNBC. “It’s not going to stop there.”
The Hims app arranged on a smartphone in New York on Feb. 12, 2025.
Gabby Jones | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Hims & Hers Health shares closed up 5% on Tuesday after the company announced patients can access Eli Lilly‘s weight loss medication Zepbound and diabetes drug Mounjaro, as well as the generic injection liraglutide, through its platform.
Zepbound, Mounjaro and liraglutide are part of the class of weight loss medications called GLP-1s, which have exploded in popularity in recent years. Hims & Hers launched a weight loss program in late 2023, but its GLP-1 offerings have evolved as the company has contended with a volatile supply and regulatory environment.
Lilly’s weekly injections Zepbound and Mounjaro will cost patients $1,899 a month, according to the Hims & Hers website. The generic liraglutide will cost $299 a month, but it requires a daily injection and can be less effective than other GLP-1 medications.
“As we look ahead, we plan to continue to expand our weight loss offering to deliver an even more holistic, personalized experience,” Dr. Craig Primack, senior vice president of weight loss at Hims & Hers, wrote in a blog post.
A Lilly spokesperson said in a statement that the company has “no affiliation” with Hims & Hers and noted that Zepbound is available at lower costs for people who are insured for the product or for those who buy directly from the company.
In May, Hims & Hers started prescribing compounded semaglutide, the active ingredient in Novo Nordisk‘s GLP-1 weight loss medications Ozempic and Wegovy. The offering was immensely popular and helped generate more than $225 million in revenue for the company in 2024.
But compounded drugs can traditionally only be mass produced when the branded medications treatments are in shortage. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced in February that the shortage of semaglutide injections products had been resolved.
That meant Hims & Hers had to largely stop offering the compounded medications, though some consumers may still be able to access personalized doses if it’s clinically applicable.
During the company’s quarterly call with investors in February, Hims & Hers said its weight loss offerings will primarily consist of its oral medications and liraglutide. The company said it expects its weight loss offerings to generate at least $725 million in annual revenue, excluding contributions from compounded semaglutide.
But the company is still lobbying for compounded medications. A pop up on Hims & Hers’ website, which was viewed by CNBC, encourages users to “use your voice” and urge Congress and the FDA to preserve access to compounded treatments.
With Tuesday’s rally, Hims and Hers shares are up about 27% in 2025 after soaring 172% last year.
WATCH: Hims & Hers shares tumble over concerns around weight-loss business
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg holds a smartphone as he makes a keynote speech at the Meta Connect annual event at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California, on Sept. 25, 2024.
Manuel Orbegozo | Reuters
Meta’s head of artificial intelligence research announced Tuesday that she will be leaving the company.
Joelle Pineau, the company’s vice president of AI research, announced her departure in a LinkedIn post, saying her last day at the social media company will be May 30.
Her departure comes at a challenging time for Meta. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has made AI a top priority, investing billions of dollars in an effort to become the market leader ahead of rivals like OpenAI and Google.
Zuckerberg has said that it is his goal for Meta to build an AI assistant with more than 1 billion users and artificial general intelligence, which is a term used to describe computers that can think and take actions comparable to humans.
“As the world undergoes significant change, as the race for AI accelerates, and as Meta prepares for its next chapter, it is time to create space for others to pursue the work,” Pineau wrote. “I will be cheering from the sidelines, knowing that you have all the ingredients needed to build the best AI systems in the world, and to responsibly bring them into the lives of billions of people.”
Vice President of AI Research and Head of FAIR at Meta Joelle Pineau attends a technology demonstration at the META research laboratory in Paris on February 7, 2025.
Stephane De Sakutin | AFP | Getty Images
Pineau was one of Meta’s top AI researchers and led the company’s fundamental AI research unit, or FAIR, since 2023. There, she oversaw the company’s cutting-edge computer science-related studies, some of which are eventually incorporated into the company’s core apps.
She joined the company in 2017 to lead Meta’s Montreal AI research lab. Pineau is also a computer science professor at McGill University, where she is a co-director of its reasoning and learning lab.
Some of the projects Pineau helped oversee include Meta’s open-source Llama family of AI models and other technologies like the PyTorch software for AI developers.
Pineau’s departure announcement comes a few weeks ahead of Meta’s LlamaCon AI conference on April 29. There, the company is expected to detail its latest version of Llama. Meta Chief Product Officer Chris Cox, to whom Pineau reported to, said in March that Llama 4 will help power AI agents, the latest craze in generative AI. The company is also expected to announce a standalone app for its Meta AI chatbot, CNBC reported in February.
“We thank Joelle for her leadership of FAIR,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement. “She’s been an important voice for Open Source and helped push breakthroughs to advance our products and the science behind them.”
Pineau did not reveal her next role but said she “will be taking some time to observe and to reflect, before jumping into a new adventure.”
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