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.”
Dado Ruvic | Reuters
If TikTok does indeed go dark on Sunday for Americans, there may be a tool for them to continue accessing the popular social app: VPNs.
The Chinese-owned app is set to be removed from mobile app stores and the web for U.S. users on Sunday as a result of a law signed by President Joe Biden in April 2024 requiring that the app be sold to a qualified buyer before the deadline.
Barring a last-minute sale or reprieve from the Supreme Court, the app will almost certainly vanish from the app stores for iPhones and Android phones. It won’t be removed from people’s phones, but the app could stop working.
TikTok plans to shut its service for Americans on Sunday, meaning that even those who already have the app downloaded won’t be able to continue using it, according to reports this week from Reuters and The Information. Apple and Google didn’t comment on their plans for taking down the apps from their app stores on Sunday.
“Basically, an app or a website can check where users came from,” said Justas Palekas, a head of product at IProyal.com, a proxy service. “Based on that, then they can impose restrictions based on their location.”
Masking your physical internet access point
That may stop most users, but for the particularly driven Americans, using VPNs might allow them to continue using the app.
VPNs and a related business-to-business technology called proxies work by tunneling a user’s internet traffic through a server in another country, making it look like they are accessing the internet from a location different than the one they are physically in.
This works because every time a computer connects to the internet, it is identified through an IP number, which is a 12-digit number that is different for every single computer. The first six digits of the number identifies the network, which also includes information about the physical region the request came from.
In China, people have used VPNs for years to get around the country’s firewall, which blocks U.S. websites such as Google and Facebook. VPNs saw big spikes in traffic when India banned TikTok in 2020, and people often use VPNs to watch sporting events from countries where official broadcasts aren’t available.
As of 2022, the VPN market was worth nearly $38 billion, according to the VPN Trust Initiative, a lobbying group.
“We consistently see significant spikes in VPN demand when access to online platforms is restricted, and this situation is no different,” said Lauren Hendry Parsons, privacy advocate at ExpressVPN, a VPN provider that costs $5 per month to use.
“We’re not here to endorse TikTok, but the looming U.S. ban highlights why VPNs matter— millions rely on them for secure, private, and unrestricted access to the internet,” ProtonVPN posted on social media earlier this week. ProtonVPN offers its service for $10 a month.
The price of VPNs
Both ExpressVPN and ProtonVPN allow users to set their internet-access location.
Most VPN services charge a monthly fee to pay for their servers and traffic, but some use a business model where they collect user data or traffic trends, such as when Meta offered a free VPN so it could keep an eye on which competitors’ apps were growing quickly.
A key tradeoff for those who use VPN is speed due to requests having to flow through a middleman computer to mask a users’ physical location.
And although VPNs have worked in the past when governments have banned apps, that doesn’t ensure that VPNs will work if TikTok goes dark. It won’t be clear if ExpressVPN would be able to access TikTok until after the ban takes place, Parsons told CNBC in an email. It’s also possible that TikTok may be able to determine Americans who try to use VPNs to access the app.
(L-R) Sarah Baus of Charleston, S.C., holds a sign that reads “Keep TikTok” as she and other content creators Sallye Miley of Jackson, Mississippi, and Callie Goodwin of Columbia, S.C., stand outside the U.S. Supreme Court Building as the court hears oral arguments on whether to overturn or delay a law that could lead to a ban of TikTok in the U.S., on January 10, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Andrew Harnik | Getty Images
VPNs and proxies to evade regional restrictions have been part of the internet’s landscape for decades, but their use is increasing as governments seek to ban certain services or apps.
Apps are removed by government request all the time. Nearly 1500 apps were removed in regions due to government takedown demands in 2023, according to Apple, with over 1,000 of them in China. Most of them are fringe apps that break laws such as those against gambling, or Chinese video game rules, but increasingly, countries are banning apps for national security or economic development reasons.
Now, the U.S. is poised to ban one of the most popular apps in the country — with 115 million users, it was the second most downloaded app of 2024 across both iOS and Android, according to an estimate provided to CNBC from Sensor Tower, a market intelligence firm.
“As we witness increasing attempts to fragment and censor the internet, the role of VPNs in upholding internet freedom is becoming increasingly critical,” Parsons said.
Technology
YouTube donating $15 million in LA wildfire relief, support for creators days before TikTok ban
Charred remains of buildings are pictured following the Palisades Fire in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood in Los Angeles, California, U.S. Jan. 15, 2025.
Mike Blake | Reuters
Google and YouTube will donate $15 million to support the Los Angeles community and content creators impacted by wildfires, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan announced in a blog post Wednesday.
The contributions will flow to local relief organizations including Emergency Network Los Angeles, the American Red Cross, the Center for Disaster Philanthropy and the Institute for Nonprofit News, the blog said. When the company’s LA offices can safely reopen, impacted creators will also be able to use YouTube’s production facilities “to recover and rebuild their businesses” as well as access community events.
“To all of our employees, the YouTube creator community, and everyone in LA, please stay safe and know we’re here to support,” Google CEO Sundar Pichai posted on X.
The move comes days before Sunday’s impending TikTok ban that has already seen content creators begin asking fans to follow them on other social platforms. YouTube Shorts, a short-form video platform within YouTube, is a competitor to TikTok, along with Meta’s Instagram Reels and the fast-growing Chinese app Rednote, otherwise known as Xiahongshu.
“In moments like these, we see the power of communities coming together to support each other — and the strength and resilience of the YouTube community is like no other,” Mohan wrote.
YouTube’s contributions are in line with a host of other LA companies pledging multi-million dollar donations aimed at assisting employees and residents impacted by the LA fires. Meta announced a $4 million donation split between CEO Mark Zuckerberg and the company while both Netflix and Comcast pledged $10 million donations to multiple aid groups.
Disclosure: Comcast owns NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC.
WATCH: TikTok: What creators would do if the short-form video app goes dark
Technology
TikTok’s U.S. operations could be worth as much as $50 billion if ByteDance decides to sell
Jakub Porzycki | Nurphoto | Getty Images
Business moguls such as Elon Musk should be prepared to spend tens of billions of dollars for TikTok’s U.S. operations should parent company ByteDance decide to sell.
TikTok is staring at a potential ban in the U.S. if the Supreme Court decides to uphold a national security law in which service providers such as Apple and Google would be penalized for hosting the app after the Sunday deadline. ByteDance has not indicated that it will sell the app’s U.S. unit, but the Chinese government has considered a plan in which X owner Musk would acquire the operations, as part of several scenarios in consideration, Bloomberg News reported Monday.
If ByteDance decides to sell, potential buyers may have to spend between $40 billion and $50 billion. That’s the valuation that CFRA Research Senior Vice President Angelo Zino has estimated for TikTok’s U.S. operations. Zino based his valuation on estimates of TikTok’s U.S. user base and revenue in comparison to rival apps.
TikTok has about 115 million monthly mobile users in the U.S., which is slightly behind Instagram’s 131 million, according to an estimate by market intelligence firm Sensor Tower. That puts TikTok ahead of Snapchat, Pinterest and Reddit, which have U.S. monthly mobile user bases of 96 million, 74 million and 32 million, according to Sensor Tower.
Zino’s estimate, however, is down from the more than $60 billion that he estimated for the unit in March 2024, when the House passed the initial national security bill that President Joe Biden signed into law the following month.
The lowered estimate is due to TikTok’s current geopolitical predicament and because “industry multiples have come in a bit” since March, Zino told CNBC in an email. Zino’s estimate doesn’t include TikTok’s valuable recommendation algorithms, which a U.S. acquirer would not obtain as part of a deal, with the algorithms and their alleged ties to China being central to the U.S. government’s case that TikTok poses a national security threat.
Analysts at Bloomberg Intelligence have their estimate for TikTok’s U.S. operations pegged in the range of $30 billion to $35 billion. That’s the estimate they published in July, saying at the time that the value of the unit would be “discounted due to it being a forced sale.”
Bloomberg Intelligence analysts noted that finding a buyer for TikTok’s U.S. operations that can both afford the transaction and deal with the accompanying regulatory scrutiny on data privacy makes a sale challenging. It could also make it difficult for a buyer to expand TikTok’s ads business, they wrote.
A consortium of businesspeople including billionaire Frank McCourt and O’Leary Ventures Chairman Kevin O’Leary put in a bid to buy TikTok from ByteDance. O’Leary has previously said the group would be willing to pay up to $20 billion to acquire the U.S. assets without the algorithm.
Unlike a Musk bid, O’Leary’s group’s bid would be free from regulatory scrutiny, O’Leary said in a Monday interview with Fox News.
O’Leary said that he’s “a huge Elon Musk fan,” but added “the idea that the regulator, even under Trump’s administration, would allow this is pretty slim.”
TikTok, X and O’Leary Ventures did not respond to requests for comment.
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