Xavier Niel, French billionaire and chairman of the Iliad group, has announced his intention to host an AI conference in Paris in November, the same month as Britain’s AI Safety Summit.
The French conference is reported to be sponsored by US chipmaking giant NVIDIA and comes at the same time as Niel made a pledge to invest €200 million in AI.
The British summit is being held on 1-2nd November in Bletchley Park, while the French conference will be on 17th November at Station F.
The Paris conference is being launched by Scaleway, part of the Iliad Group, and aims to showcase recent advances in AI, decrypt the impact that the latest AI models will have on the world of business, and anticipate upcoming trends. The conference is calling itself the first European AI conference.
The UK’s AI Safety Summit will see tech executives, government leaders, and experts discuss the innovations and future solutions involving AI for the first time. Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology Michelle Donelan said: “The UK is consistently recognised as a world leader in AI and we are well placed to lead these discussions.”
Claire Trachet, CEO of business advisory firm, Trachet, told Sifted this French move “marks a very important moment for the UK, especially in terms of recognising that there are other players across Europe also hoping to catch up with the US in the AI space.”
The French event’s organisers say they want to hold the event annually.