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UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and French President Emmanuel Macron.
Ken Cheung | pool | Getty Images
LONDON – Two countries are vying for status as Europe’s capital of artificial intelligence.
Both French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak have made bold statements about artificial intelligence in recent weeks, as they each try to claim a share of the vastly bloated market.
“I think we are number one (in artificial intelligence) in continental Europe, and we have to hurry,” Macron told CNBC’s Karen Tsou at the annual Viva Tech conference in France on June 18. Regulating AI Safety” at the London Technology Week conference on June 12.
Artificial intelligence is seen as revolutionary and therefore of strategic importance to governments around the world.
The hype around the technology has arisen in part because of the viral nature of MicrosoftPowered by OpenAI’s ChatGPT. It has also been a source of tech tensions between the US and China as countries around the world try to harness the potential of their most important technologies.
So who is leading the race for the European crown in AI?
Financial issues
at VivaTech in Paris, Macron announced 500 million euros ($562 million) of new funding to create new AI “heroes”. This comes on top of the government’s previous commitments, Including the promise To pump 1.5 billion euros into artificial intelligence before 2022, in an attempt to catch up with the American and Chinese markets.
“We will invest like crazy in training and research,” Macron told CNBC, adding that France is well-placed in the field of artificial intelligence due to its access to talent and startups that are forming around the technology.
In March, the UK government It pledged £1 billion ($1.3 billion) for supercomputing and artificial intelligence research, as it appears to be becoming a “science and technology superpower.”
As part of the strategy, the government said it wanted to It spends about 900 million pounds sterling An exascale computer would be able to build its own BritGPT, which would rival OpenAI’s generative AI chatbots.
However, some officials have criticized the funding pledge, saying it is not enough to help the UK compete with giants such as the US and China.
“It looks great, but it’s nowhere near where we need to be,” Sajid Javid, a former minister in former Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government, said in a panel discussion at London Technology Week.
Adjusting Amnesty International violations
One big difference between the UK and France is how each country chooses to regulate AI, and the laws already in place that affect the fast-moving technology.
The European Union has its own artificial intelligence law, which is set to be the first comprehensive set of laws focused on artificial intelligence in the West. was the legislation It was approved by lawmakers in the European Parliament in June.
It evaluates different applications of AI based on risk – for example, real-time biometric identification systems and social scorecard systems are deemed to pose “unacceptable risks”, and are therefore prohibited by regulations.
France would be under the direct jurisdiction of the AI law, and it would be “unsurprising” if the relevant French regulator, whether it be the CNIL or a new AI regulator, would take an “aggressive approach” to its enforcement, according to Maench Tanna. , the global AI leader at the international law firm Simmons & Simmons.
In the UK, rather than passing laws on AI, the government has launched a technical book advising various industry regulators on how to apply the existing rules to their own sectors. The white paper takes a principles-based approach to regulating artificial intelligence.
The framework has been promoted by the government as a “flexible” approach to regulation, which Tana described as more “pro-innovation” than the French method.
He added, “The UK’s approach is driven, in a post-Brexit world, by the desire to encourage investment in AI,” giving the UK more “freedom and flexibility to offer regulation at the appropriate level to encourage investment.” Email to CNBC.
In contrast, Tana said the EU’s AI law could make France “less attractive” to invest in AI given that it creates a “burdensome regulatory regime” for AI.
who will win?
“France definitely has a chance to be a leader in Europe, but it faces stiff competition from Germany and the UK,” Anton Dahborah, co-director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Assured Autonomy, told CNBC by email.
Alexandre Lebrun, CEO of Nabla, the AI “co-pilot” for doctors, said the UK and France are “maybe even” when it comes to the attractiveness of starting an AI company.
“There’s a good talent pool, search centers like Google and Facebook AI, and a reasonable home market,” he told CNBC, but warned that EU AI law would make it “impossible” for startups to build AI in the EU.
“If at the same time the United Kingdom adopts a smarter law, it will certainly prevail over the European Union and France,” Lebrun added.
At the same time, London has been the source of much doom and gloom from some corners of the industry, who have criticized the country for being an unattractive place for tech entrepreneurs.
Keir Starmer, leader of the opposition Labor Party, told attendees at London Technology Week that a series of political crises in the country had affected investor sentiment towards technology in general.
“A lot of investors tell me we’re not investing in the UK right now because we don’t see the conditions of political certainty that we need in order to invest,” Starmer said.
Claire Trachet, CFO of French technology company YesWeHackAnd He said that both the UK and France have the potential to challenge the dominance of the AI giants in the US – but it is as much about cooperation across Europe as it is about competition between the different centres.
“This will require concerted and collective efforts of the great European technological powers,” she said. “To truly make an impact, they must leverage their collective resources, foster collaboration, and invest in nurturing a strong ecosystem.”
“The combination of their strengths – especially with Germany’s involvement – could allow them to create a compelling alternative in the next 10 to 15 years to the disruptive AI landscape, but again, this will require significant strategic vision and a collaborative approach,” Trachet added.
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