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00:00President Emmanuel Macron making his pitch to investors to invest in France and to as he put it by
00:07European in the opening day of a two-day AI action summit co-hosted by France and
00:15India
00:16the French president talking about an AI at the service of humanity and
00:21embracing
00:23Disruption as they say in Silicon Valley
00:26Something that Emmanuel Macron knows about talking about working with the US China India and the whole world
00:32he says and
00:34We're with Douglas Herbert from our International Affairs desk. Also saying all the talk about
00:39What limits you put on how you regulate that'll be for day two
00:43And it'll actually start later in this evening when there's a dinner for the world leaders who've already
00:49Been gathering here in Paris of this Monday
00:54Of the one-liners in that speech
00:57plug baby plug
00:59Pointing to the fact that you know free for large language models for big data centers
01:04You need a lot of energy and France has nuclear power
01:07Exactly. These data centers are what the French call energy war right? They literally like carnivores of energy. They gobble it up
01:15France is well positioned in one respect on that count because at least
01:20Macron is constantly boasting about the fact that nuclear energy is by far the biggest provider of
01:27France's electric electricity generation
01:30It's a cleaner source way. It's considered, you know among the renewable energies a clean energy
01:36Even if there are a lot of anti-nuclear activists out there
01:39so he sees it in a sense as France well positioned to be able to generate the type of
01:46Electrical capacity needed to run these data centers massive data centers
01:51Which need these mega chips these supercomputer chips that can cost tens of thousands of euros a piece
01:59Which have also been one of the impediments because you know
02:01We heard him coming back to the same theme again and again at the heart of the question is
02:05Macron can have all the political will in the world that he wants to put France at the heart of this
02:10Decision-making to put to
02:12project France as a leader in fields as he likes to do in this case in the technology field not to
02:17Have France and Europe left behind in AI but at the end of the day you will always get back to square one
02:23Which is the money and the investment you can't get around this now
02:26The Chinese have taken the world by surprise by suggesting you can sort of get around the investment
02:32You can do the same capacity at much lower cost
02:36Obviously these models these new models including deep-seek are still in the proving stage
02:41These are early days yet and whether or not
02:44Low investment at that type of capacity is really viable and possible going ahead for development is yet to be seen you need lots of
02:52Money, there's just no way around that and just very very briefly the elephant in the room
02:56He addressed it to degree is the presence of the US vice-president first foray on the world stage for JD Vance
03:02And he talked a little bit like the president of the European Commission did recently
03:09When she talked about slashing red tape there was a feeling of a Trump effect
03:13And he said that there has to be a wake-up call for European strategy. He said we will simplify
03:19That's what he told investors in the room simplify, but there's also a hitch there
03:23Even if he's not explicitly and loudly saying it right now
03:26France cannot ignore the European calls also for an ethical development an ethical component to the development of AI
03:34He's not going to perhaps use the word regulation
03:36But we have seen it in other sectors such as the Digital Services Act
03:40Trying to ensure that as these promising new technologies develop
03:45They are not going to march in lockstep with the American model of development
03:49even if they are in a position today where they have to make
03:53Nice positive cooing noises at the Americans because the Americans right now
03:57Have stolen all the thunder on the stage America and China you can't afford to alienate the United States
04:02But trust me going ahead
04:05Europe is going to find its own way to not adapt the same model
04:11That is perhaps one of the strengths it's going to try to predict project going ahead the fear being as AI develops
04:17The ethical dimensions are going to become more and more
04:20Important the fears people have will it be controlling us rather than it us controlling AI
04:25They fear that the American model might be too unbounded unfettered at the moment
04:30so perhaps the value-added of the European model is being able to bring you all of the
04:34The power of AI the technological power with the ethical component included in the package
04:41Let's just dip in quickly again the French president. They're speaking to to the crowd at the AI summit and you can see
04:50In the company of
05:05France is a country of reconciliation and of diversity. So rather than talking about artificial intelligence, I'd like to talk about
05:14Alternative intelligence
05:16All right, so there you see Emmanuel Macron there who was behind the controls there a moment ago
05:23We're in the company of Gabrielle Hubert co-founder of dust is dust which I guess
05:29It's a dinosaur. You've existed since what?
05:322023 that's been almost two years. Yeah, it seems it's been that long. So if I understand this correctly
05:38your startup
05:39If chat GPT is the Internet your startup is the intranet, right?
05:44You use to help companies
05:48to
05:49Make their in-house communication much more efficient. Yes. Thank you very much for having us for a good evening
05:55Dust indeed does allow fast-moving teams to connect the state-of-the-art models to their internal data
06:03they're sometimes very sensitive and private data in order to design deploy and
06:08maintain fleets of AI agents that can help on all sorts of productivity tasks ranging from
06:14information retrieval data analysis
06:17summarization or
06:19contextualization of decisions and that
06:22You're selling of what you're selling is a secure system
06:24Yes, absolutely secure easy to monitor easy to track and audit and I have to say I was quite proud that two of the companies
06:33President McCall mentioned in making strides in AI are actually users of dust for their internal productivity systems while focusing on their AI
06:41product efforts
06:42Aside from that. So let's cut to the chase here. First off listening to Emmanuel Macron
06:47Does he have it right in terms of how you sort of do the balance of the message?
06:52He's saying at the same time come invest with us, but he's also saying hey, we need to regulate
06:57Well, if I was to focus on one aspect of his message tonight
07:00It's also landing a pretty ethereal plane that has been creating fears and uncertainty in many people's minds and making it concrete
07:08To people at home in France and to people in Europe about the short-term
07:12Positive effects of investing of leaning in he talked about the places where these data centers would be built
07:18He talked about the regions in France where research and academic activity would be encouraged
07:24And I think that's giving a more palpable more tangible aspect to this revolution
07:28He did not shy away from mentioning that it was a revolution that there would be
07:33Acceleration and I think he's putting people in Europe in front of the contradiction that they they feel they are falling behind and yet sometimes
07:39Feel fearful of accelerating there can be no contradiction
07:42There's only one way forward and that's forward faster if we are to catch up
07:45Okay, so there's some technological revolutions that we can all embrace the advent of the cash machine for instance here
07:52We don't know if this all this stuff is going to escape our grasp as humans
07:58I think there's two levels at which we can place the debate
08:01There is the yet theoretical conversation around
08:06Artificial general intelligence or super intelligence that could escape our control and then there's the very concrete ways in which
08:13Tasks that people do not want to do
08:15Repetitive actions that people are burdened with day in day out could get rid of if they had
08:21Broader access to the technology that is available today and the adequate training to be able to put it in place securely and right now
08:29It always the regulators are always one step behind. Are they two steps behind?
08:34I think in some ways the world has looked at Europe and wondered if regulators were maybe a couple of steps ahead
08:40We remember the UK summit about AI safety a couple of years ago and wondering about the safety of models that had yet to prove
08:47Any comparable performance with what we're discussing today?
08:50So with hindsight and the clarity of hindsight, maybe it was a bit early to talk about some of those aspects of security
08:56I think that we just have to have a nuanced approach
08:59It's very very important that research and academia be able to access the largest computation
09:05But when Donald Trump puts all those tech titans in the front row at his inauguration
09:10He's also sending a message to Europe saying don't even try to regulate us
09:15Yeah
09:15I think this is one of the topics in which Europe has a place to stand and to draw lines
09:21We have a very wealthy
09:25Concentrated population of buyers people who are interested in the products that the u.s
09:29Has to offer people who are also able to express their preferences when it comes to data
09:34Protection and the management of their private life
09:36I think Europe has a great vantage point from which to express that that situation and give
09:43Americans a choice they can completely come and do business and Europe is very very open for that business
09:48But it's going to be in some degree on on Europe's terms
09:51There's also the risk factor right he's talking there the hundred and nine billion euro announcement
09:57It's money from the United Arab Emirates from a Canadian investment firm
10:03Whether or not that's the exact sum that actually gets invested in data centers and more for a company like yours
10:09How hard is it?
10:12getting
10:14European investors to take a punt I
10:17Think the European investment scene has come a long long way in the last decade
10:22I started the money here on this side of the the ocean. I think that the money exists
10:28I think it's still behind where it's a longer conversation about the
10:32Possibility for the European market to provide the maturity to give exits to these companies and the entire venture capital ecosystem
10:38For example
10:39But to a certain degree if the money is American and invests on French soil in French companies employing people that want to work in
10:46Europe, it doesn't really matter
10:47I think what really is important is that the world has recognized the concentration of talent the availability of a stable
10:54Ecosystem the readability of some of the measures that my call mentioned tonight and that they're willing to invest
10:59I'm one example
11:01but there are many more that American investors are very happy to invest in French companies because they believe in all these things and
11:09in his primetime
11:11Interview that he gave on Sunday the French president
11:15Talked up the concept that there could be kind of a balance where France and Europe alongside
11:22India
11:23Could be a new force
11:27To balance out the superpower showdown that's existing over AI between the United States and China
11:34Did he sell it correctly? Is he is he being accurate when he sells it that way?
11:39I'm obviously not in the president's head and and the details of the plans that they have in mind are unknown to me
11:45But what I do find interesting is that this third way is emerging from the very visible tension
11:50The world has to see between non-democratic systems that have the scale and the will to dominate
11:56democratic systems that have the will and the scale to dominate but are quite aggressive including with their allies and partners in the way they
12:03Do that and a possible third way?
12:05Democratic systems that have the skill and the nuance to understand what it might take to bring a society and its economic actors
12:12to a higher level of
12:14economic freedom, thanks to artificial intelligence
12:17So much has changed since January the 20th. I mean people are openly like Donald Trump said Donald Trump
12:23Excuse me. Emmanuel Macron said they're there. They're openly having to safeguard against the United States. Was that the case before I
12:31I
12:33Think we're we're always looking to
12:37Lead in areas where market freedom gives us the opportunity to compete. I think it's a natural tendency
12:44there are certain rules and it seems like the United States has decided to
12:48Interpret some of those more recently and in a maybe more
12:52Yeah, a more aggressive way. I think the term is correct
12:56It's not new that people are going to try to lead
12:59It's it's it was a it was a quest for resources before it was a quest for AI dominance
13:04Whether it's territorial dominance cultural dominance. These are these are old as as we can imagine
13:09so I think it's just a new expression of a phase where the leading powers are trying to
13:14share their view on exactly how we want to go into the next change of human and societal development thanks to this technological breakthrough and
13:23And expressing it in maybe more clear terms that we can't always agree and that when we can't agree we have to stand our ground
13:29One final question for you Gabriel. Do you worry about the energy aspect of it?
13:33I mean you're not consoling France the fact that France has nuclear power, which has its own issues
13:38But beyond just the question of what type of power it's how much power by the year 2030
13:44It's estimated that data centers and on this continent will use up more energy than all of Spain does now for its grid
13:51Yeah, well a couple of things on nuclear power
13:54First of all, I think it does have issues
13:56But those issues are dominated by most other forms of energy that we can come and think about so that's a longer debate
14:01But I for one I'm very supportive of the state of the electricity production that we have in our country when it comes to estimates
14:07one thing we've always been wrong about is estimates about how and how much energy will be producing in the future if we think about
14:13Solar and the way we thought about solar production and the cost of solar production over the last 20 years
14:17We've been absolutely wrong about that and that was good news for everybody
14:21It's much cheaper and it's become much faster to develop the solar capacity
14:24So I think the ways in which the future will develop for us is going to become more efficient
14:29Yeah, I think as efficiency, I think new generations of productions of energy whether nuclear or non nuclear sources
14:35But there's no beating around the bush here
14:37we need more energy to be in the race for this and to also deliver to the citizens of the European Union the
14:43Level and the quality of life that they all deserve the future doesn't phase you in any way
14:47I think it's important to not be naive
14:49There's going to be change and I think he was very clear in how that change may feel
14:53Some people may end up losing the job that they know or having to reskill quickly in order to adapt to the world
14:59That's coming
15:00But I don't think that plowing our heads in the sand and trying to ignore that is going to help anybody and for one
15:06I'm supportive of a discourse that's rather clear
15:10Enthusiastic and helping us at least take our responsibilities and say that we have the agency to act and now's the time
15:15Well, thank you so much Gabrielle of dust for taking the time out to come visit us here. Absolutely. Thanks behind me
15:20Thanks as well to Douglas Herbert following that summit for us