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Winning Strategy: How Should Europe Play its Cards in the AI Race?
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00:00Good morning, I'm Jennifer Schenker, Editor-in-Chief of The Innovator.
00:05I'm going to be the moderator of this session.
00:07Welcome to Winning Strategies, How Should Europe Play Its Cards?
00:12So, to hear the U.S. press tell it,
00:15Europe is lagging far behind the U.S. and China on AI and may never catch up.
00:21But European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen dismisses that notion.
00:27She says,
00:29Too often I hear that Europe is late to the race, while the U.S. and China have gotten ahead.
00:34I disagree, because the AI race is far from over.
00:39Truth is, we are only at the beginning.
00:41The frontier is constantly moving and global leadership is still up for grabs.
00:47The European approach is showing results, but now needs to be supercharged, she said.
00:54One way to ensure that Europe's largest companies and its governments buy products and services from European AI startups.
01:03And here to tell us about how France is promoting this practice is Julie Huguet, Director of French Tech.
01:13Julie, please come to the stage.
01:24Do you want to stand or do you want to sit?
01:28Go ahead.
01:31So, good morning, everyone.
01:33I'm delighted to be with you today.
01:35So, to introduce myself very quickly, I'm a textbook example of a French entrepreneur.
01:41I founded my startups, I raised money, I sold it to a public-listed company, and I sat on its
01:48board for two years.
01:50During this time, I was also involved in the French Tech community.
01:53I was president of French Tech in the Alps for three years.
01:59That's how now, and that's why now I'm leading the Mission French Tech, which is a public organization.
02:07And we support the growth of French startups in France and abroad.
02:12Maybe a few words about what is exactly Mission French Tech and how we support startups.
02:18Actually, we design and run programs.
02:22You probably know the French Tech 120 Next 40, which is a program to support the most promising scale-ups
02:32in France.
02:32We also have the French Tech 2030, which is a program to support deep tech.
02:39We have a lot of different programs.
02:42Tromplein is for inclusion.
02:45In tech, we have Je choisi la French Tech, that means I choose French Tech.
02:48And with all these programs, we really help all the French startups to be giant and our future tech leaders.
02:59So, do you want to talk a little bit about choosing French Tech and how you're encouraging corporates to use
03:09French-made AI?
03:13So, this program is very important.
03:15It was launched two years ago by Clara Chappas when she was leading the Mission French Tech with the minister
03:23Jean-Noël Barreau.
03:24And they decided to launch this program because adoption of our tech solution is still a problem.
03:30And we really need to work really close with large corporations, but also with medium-sized companies
03:37to understand why there are still cultural and structural differences of doing business and why it is so complicated to
03:45work together.
03:47And the way the program works is that we have now 600 companies who are involved in this program with
03:56large corporations.
03:57We have 90 institutional partners, and all together we work like we are doing different actions to develop and promote
04:09the program.
04:09So, for example, we organize more than 10,000 matchmaking events in France in less than two years.
04:18We also create some training.
04:21So, for example, we launch, I choose French Tech Academy to help entrepreneurs and startups to understand the public purchasing.
04:31Because it's not so easy to understand, and to win a call tender, you need to understand the rules.
04:38So, we launched this training two months ago.
04:41So, you have also BPI France, who is involved in this program, and they launched DAPI, which is a program
04:48to help large corporations to understand how it works startups.
04:52And finally, the last point is that we need to operate a real cultural shift.
04:57And how to do that?
05:00We communicate about real use cases, about businesses.
05:04And that's very interesting because now, the press, they start to communicate about these contracts between large corporations and startups.
05:15And now, we don't see startups just like companies who raise funds, but like real companies who offer concrete solutions.
05:26Clearly, European startups and French startups cannot scale without the help of big customers like big groups and also government
05:37procurement contracts.
05:38It seems like France is leading the way and really encouraging this.
05:43Do you, you know, see this program developing Europe-wide?
05:49Yeah, of course.
05:50We need to grow the pie.
05:52It's important because our startups are already, works already in different countries.
05:58For example, in our program, French Tech 120 Next 40, 93% of them are doing business abroad.
06:06And, of course, we know that our large corporations in France, they also need European solutions.
06:13So, we need to work at the European level now.
06:16Okay, great.
06:18Thank you so much.
06:19And now, I'd like to welcome to the stage our panelists and move into the panel discussion phase of this
06:28morning.
06:29So, I'd like Hala Fadel to come to the stage.
06:33She's managing director of the growth team at EuroZio, a major player in private markets asset management.
06:40And Damien Lucas, CEO of French cloud computing and web hosting company, Scaleway.
06:53So, Hala, let me start with you.
06:56In your opinion, is buy-in from large European companies and government an important factor in the success of European
07:03AI startups?
07:04And would you like to see other European countries adapt this strategy?
07:10Good morning, everyone.
07:12Yes, absolutely, Jennifer.
07:13This is a very important point because European startups face a problem when it comes to scale in Europe.
07:23Very often, in our portfolio, for example, we tell our startups, your next market, after having started in one European
07:32market, is the US, because adoption is faster.
07:35And the velocity of the market helps them to scale faster.
07:41So, if we have faster European adoption by large companies and clients to these startups, that is forced somehow because
07:49it implies a shift in the mentality of European buyers to trust those startups and to adopt technology faster.
07:59This would be a game-changer in terms of how quickly European startups can scale in Europe.
08:06Yeah, we've had a situation here in Europe now for decades where many European startups actually have to move to
08:14the US in order to sell back into Europe because the large European companies somehow trust US tech more than
08:24they trust European tech.
08:26So, this is something that clearly has to change.
08:29So, Damien, let me now move to you, procurement is clearly an important growth driver for startups, but if you
08:38don't control your technological infrastructure, you have no sovereignty.
08:43So, the US enjoys near supremacy when it comes to chips, cloud and software, Europe is trying to turn the
08:52tide.
08:53And we heard here at VivaTech on the opening day the announcement of this new partnership between Mistral AI and
09:01NVIDIA to launch a European AI cloud.
09:08Now, Scaleway already offers an AI cloud along with a broader sovereign cloud solution for business, and here at VivaTech,
09:18Scaleway announced expansion into two new European countries, bringing the total of EU countries served to five.
09:26Why, in your opinion, is it necessary for Europe to have multiple sovereign cloud offerings, and how confident are you
09:35that Europe will be able to lessen its dependence on US AI tools across the full stack?
09:44Thank you for the question.
09:47Thank you for the question.
09:47And you're right.
09:48I mean, we launched a European AI cloud about two years ago, and we currently have the largest GPU compute
09:57capacity in Europe, and that's great.
10:00But Europe cannot rely on a single player on that market.
10:04This is way too risky for Europe to rely on a single player.
10:09So, it's great news that we have another player on that market, and we have the capacity in Europe to
10:18host multiple players, because we have enough electricity, because we have enough data centers, because we have the possibility to
10:26purchase those GPUs, even though they are unique.
10:29We have the U.S. mainly, but we have this capacity, so it's very important, because when we talk about
10:35sovereignty, it's great to have European sovereignty, but sovereignty is first about the ability to choose.
10:44And if we end up with sovereignty is about you should work with that single player, this is no sovereignty
10:50at all.
10:51So, yes, sovereignty is about data, okay?
10:56It's data regulation.
10:57Everyone knows that AI requires data, and personally, I mean, from a personal point of view, I'm very proud to
11:07be European, because in Europe we have a specific regulation in terms of data.
11:12We have GDPR, and that is a value from Europe that is critical.
11:19So, we need to have cloud providers that actually operate under European regulation, so that they keep this specific value
11:28of the data.
11:28This is the case of Skyway, because Skyway is 100% European, our shareholders are only European, etc.
11:37But we need different offers.
11:40Mistral is another one.
11:41Mistral is a French company, that's great, with different shareholders, not only French, but that's fine as well.
11:48And it offers multiple choices.
11:51We provide a general purpose cloud with AI capacity, they provide a specific AI cloud.
11:58Different offers, but the market is large enough.
12:01Think about it.
12:02The US have at least eight AI clouds.
12:07This is what you have in the US.
12:08So, of course, we need multiple players in Europe that will help strengthen this industry,
12:15that will help having top-level players.
12:19And competition, obviously, competition is great.
12:23Yeah.
12:23Competition is an enabler to the market.
12:26So, I'm proud to compete on that market.
12:29Okay, thank you.
12:30Now, Hala, I saw you nodding your head.
12:32Please jump in here.
12:35Yeah, I nod my head, because what Damien is saying is a problem that is, like, I mean, beyond cloud,
12:44he mentioned Mistral as being the only large language model available in Europe.
12:51And if we take a step back and try and think, you know, why is there only one AI cloud
12:56provider?
12:57Why is there only one Mistral?
12:59Fundamentally, it's a problem of funding.
13:01There aren't enough funds in Europe, in general, to fund these innovations that require a lot of money.
13:09And no matter how quickly and how great all the initiatives, public initiatives coming from BPI in France or from
13:19the European Investment Fund or from larger European funding,
13:24we're still lagging behind an order of magnitude of about ten times behind the US and behind China and behind
13:32also other ecosystems.
13:35And we need more funding to have ten potential Mistral in Europe.
13:43There is talent. Everything else is here in Europe, but there isn't funding.
13:49And the funding that is required is funding that is willing to take risk, which means we need to be
13:58at peace with making mistakes.
14:00Maybe we're going to fund a lot of companies that will fail and go bankrupt.
14:04And we won't say this is a waste of public money.
14:07We cannot say it's a waste of taxpayers' money.
14:10It's part of the equation. You try, you fail, you start again.
14:14But we need probably ten times more.
14:17I mean, the Draghi report, I'm not saying anything new.
14:19This is what the Draghi report says.
14:21We need 800 billion a year invested in innovation in Europe that we don't have today.
14:27And I couldn't agree more with that.
14:30So let me ask you a follow-up question about compute infrastructure.
14:34A recent report from the Tony Blair Institute found that the U.S. built more data center capacity in 2023
14:44than the rest of the world combined, excluding China.
14:48And it talks about that the difference in compute from country to country risks becoming the basis of a new
14:58digital divide.
14:59So how do we get the right infrastructure in place here in Europe?
15:03European governments, including France, have committed billions to this.
15:08But it requires hundreds of billions.
15:12So what about VC and private equity funds?
15:17Can you speak to how Eurizio integrates European sovereignty considerations into its investment strategies?
15:26And do you think AI infrastructure is a good investment?
15:32So, you know, on the VC side, infrastructure is, you know, another ballgame.
15:40We invest mainly in software and venture capital around the world is more focused on that because it requires maybe
15:49a different agenda and much bigger funds.
15:54That's what's available in venture capital.
15:57So a data infrastructure for us is more on the data layer.
16:02It doesn't involve actual infrastructure, but how to organize the data, the security, the privacy, the governance that Damien was
16:10mentioning.
16:10So we're investing this layer of data infrastructure we invest in, but not actually in compute and the hosting solutions.
16:20Okay.
16:21Julie, what are you hearing from investors?
16:25So I meet investors, policymakers, also entrepreneurs every day.
16:30And what I hear the most is that the AI race is not over.
16:36And the good news is it's not just about investment.
16:39It's also a race.
16:40This race is also about talent.
16:42And we have one of the best talents in France and Europe.
16:46We have good school.
16:48Another point is that to win this race, if there is a winner, we need to have good solution.
16:56And when I see our program French Tech 120 next 40, I see 120 solutions, good AI solution, which are
17:05ready to scale.
17:07And for example, we have 33 unicorns in France and 16 AI unicorns.
17:15You already know Mistral, we have Content Square, we have Miracle, we have a lot of good solution.
17:23The last point is that last week, I was with the Minister Clara Chappas, and she said something very interesting.
17:33And I didn't use that, actually.
17:36There are more users on Facebook in Europe than in USA.
17:41So the European market is here, is huge.
17:46But now what we have to do, for me, is to adapt all these solutions we have.
17:53If we create companies, if we have amazing AI and tech solutions, and if we don't use it, of course
18:01we can't win the game.
18:04So just as a follow-up to that, Europe needs to think like Europe and not France or Germany or
18:21Spain.
18:22There's still a tendency to want to build national champions.
18:29And so Hala and Damien, do you have thoughts on how we move ahead?
18:38Because each country is pouring money into their national strategy.
18:42How do we start really building European market?
18:47We've been trying for a couple decades, and there's still a lot of barriers there.
18:54I'm happy to give it a shot.
18:57I think the mentality is there in our entrepreneurs.
19:01Like today at Euraseo, we have 40% of the Europe Next 40 startups, as defined by Euronext.
19:10And these entrepreneurs are truly pan-European.
19:14Our team is pan-European.
19:16We have offices in London, Munich, Berlin, Barcelona, Madrid, Paris, Milan.
19:23We have 17 nationalities in a team of 25 people.
19:27The entrepreneurs think pan-European.
19:30I think it's more the policy makers and actually governments within Europe that still think in a very nationalistic way.
19:41So I think if we let the entrepreneurs lead, then we have a true European mentality.
19:50So Damien, you're not just French.
19:53Scareway is not just French, it's European.
19:55It's European, that's right.
19:57But when it comes to the cloud industry, let's have a very quick parallel between the US cloud industry and
20:03the European cloud industry.
20:06Those that built a cloud in the US, they tend to build an infrastructure west coast, another one east coast,
20:13and you're done.
20:15You can cover the whole US territory with data center on the west coast, data center on the east coast.
20:23None of the AWS, GCP, or Azure actually built data center capacity in each of the 50 states of the
20:32US.
20:33It doesn't exist.
20:35When it comes to Europe, well, you know what?
20:39French want to keep their data in France.
20:44Italians want to keep their data in Italy.
20:46And so does Germans, etc, etc, etc.
20:50So at Scareway, what are we doing?
20:52We have infrastructure in France, we have infrastructure in the Netherlands, we have infrastructure in Poland.
20:58Yesterday we announced infrastructure in Italy, we announced infrastructure in Sweden, etc, etc, etc, etc.
21:06So it's a higher cost.
21:08First, when it comes to certification, in France, for a cloud provider, we need a specific certification for healthcare data.
21:20But another one for banking data.
21:23And guess what?
21:24In order to operate in Italy, we need a specific Italian certification to operate healthcare data, and a specific Italian
21:32certification to operate banking data.
21:35So we need 27 more certifications.
21:40Conclusion?
21:41It's way harder.
21:43Okay.
21:44It's way harder.
21:45That doesn't mean we will not succeed.
21:48Let's be clear.
21:49That doesn't mean we will not succeed.
21:51We will succeed.
21:53We need to be more efficient.
21:55We need to go faster.
21:57Maybe it's a bit of, maybe it requires more capital.
22:02But we will succeed.
22:03We have to do that.
22:05If we are helped by the authorities to help the regulation being more, you know, common between the different countries
22:13and the different member states, we'll be great.
22:16If we have less boundaries, if we have more European regulation, less local regulation, it will help.
22:23But at the end, no matter what, and this is SkyWay's mission, we will succeed.
22:29We will be more efficient, we will invest more, we will go faster, but we will succeed.
22:37Julie, I saw you nodding.
22:39Did you want to add something there?
22:42Yeah, sure.
22:43I think Europe's regulation shows that we can innovate and create trust.
22:52So, for me, it's interesting what Damien said, and he said that twice since the beginning of this discussion.
23:00I think it's a third way to innovate.
23:04It's part of our culture.
23:06So, we can create innovation, but still respecting data, companies, people.
23:14So, yeah, I think for us, it's a way to create differentiation.
23:21So, that's a great segue into the next area that I wanted the panel to discuss, which is, is there
23:32a chance for Europe to build a kind of third way, an alternative to the US capitalist, you know, move
23:42fast, break things.
23:43And the Chinese approach to AI and build on our values and the regulations here, like GDPR, which Damien mentioned,
23:57to build a, you know, an EU brand of trustworthy AI that would not work just in Europe, but also
24:08could be attractive to countries like India.
24:13Or maybe to Africa.
24:15I believe we already started this.
24:18We already started this.
24:20And when you think about AI, I mean, most critical, again, is data.
24:24And think about that.
24:27In the US, if a federal agency asks a cloud provider to provide third party data, so data from its
24:35customer, the cloud provider has to.
24:38No matter where it's located, whether it's located in France, whether it's located in the US, the cloud provider has
24:46to.
24:47This is a US regulation.
24:50OK?
24:51Same in China, even worse.
24:54In Europe, it's very simple.
24:58You don't have to, unless you're ordered by justice, by your judge.
25:05And this is fundamental.
25:07And there is a number of countries, companies, outside Europe, they have to choose a cloud.
25:14And they either choose a cloud where their data is not safe, or a cloud where their data is protected
25:22by European justice.
25:25And this is a different way.
25:27This is not the way the US operates.
25:29This is not the way China operates.
25:30This is not the way Russia operates.
25:33This is one of the key values of Europe that makes the European cloud provider so different on the planet.
25:42What's the investor perspective on that?
25:45Yeah, I want to take a step back and maybe use a book I just read recently called The Technology
25:52Republic by Alex Karp, who's the founder of Palantir.
25:56And he said that what characterized the 20th century was this alliance between government and innovation and scientists that led
26:05to space exploration with a purpose, that led to the creation of the internet with a purpose.
26:11And for some reason, and he describes how, in the 21st century, government took, at least in the US, its
26:19hand out of science and innovation, and it became purposeless.
26:23You got social media, where you can question the purpose of it, space exploration for, you know, tourism, as opposed
26:31to, you know, the necessity of, you know, discovering new things, abundant e-commerce that leads to consequences on the
26:43planet that we know.
26:44And he calls for government and values and mission to shake hands again with innovation and science, so that together,
26:55we create the right environment, not just for AI, but although it's not a very fashionable topic today, I think
27:02technology needs to bring a lot to climate solutions as well.
27:06And at Eurasio, we continue investing in those innovations.
27:11So, I think if we have a smart regulator in Europe, because on GDPR, they were smart, on, you know,
27:20climate and taxonomy, there were some questionable framework.
27:25If we work hand-in-hand, like innovators, founders, entrepreneurs, with the regulator, and we come up with pragmatic ways
27:34of implementing a framework that makes everybody happy and productive and inspires trust, as Julie was saying.
27:44I think this is exactly what we need, and if we have that, we can attract not just the talent
27:50we have in Europe, but global talent that is also searching for a place where they can safely innovate without
27:58the risk of, you know, Big Brother calling for certain data or, you know, freedom of expression not being necessarily
28:08respected.
28:10The word diversity being, you know, just taken out of research papers.
28:15So, we can create this framework if we are very pragmatic in the way of using it, because Europe has
28:23been labeled as the place that abuses regulation.
28:27So, we need to counter that and do it hand-in-hand with entrepreneurs so that we come up with
28:33a regulation that can easily be implemented and empowers all those innovators.
28:39Damien, you wanted to say something.
28:41Yeah.
28:42I explained my view about that third way in terms of data regulation, but you're right.
28:47Climate.
28:48Climate is key as well.
28:50That's part of the key values from Europe.
28:53Do you guys know how Elon Musk actually created that wonderful GPU cluster that he built in 22 days?
29:02So he says, with petrol generators, diesel generators, they are just burning fuel to power the GPUs in the middle
29:17of the desert.
29:19That's nonsense.
29:21From an ecological point of view, that's nonsense.
29:25Do you know how Skyway operates its GPU?
29:30There is not even AC.
29:32Not even AC.
29:34This is free cooling.
29:36This is free cooling.
29:37It makes a major difference in terms of climate.
29:39Major difference.
29:41So why would we choose a European cloud provider?
29:44Maybe also because the impact on the climate by running a GPU within the European values is very different to
29:56the impact of running GPUs without those values.
30:02And that's another access very, very important.
30:05At least it is very important to Skyway.
30:07Well, it's a great point.
30:08And I want to also go back to what Hal has said about this idea of purpose.
30:13Because, you know, for me, for Europe needs to move away from, you know, just being an entity that tries
30:28to avoid war to actually, you know, becoming a feeling.
30:33Like that people feel like they're European.
30:36They are proud to be European.
30:38And have a purpose.
30:40And that purpose is, you know, if AI is going to change everything in the world and impact every aspect
30:47of our lives, well, we want that AI to reflect our values.
30:53And so I think that could be something that might inspire young entrepreneurs to come together across borders and work
31:04on purely European solutions.
31:06And we need our leaders to also adopt this idea of a purpose with a bigger vision of where we're
31:16going and we want to go with AI because it shouldn't be just about regulating to slow down the Americans
31:24or to catch up in some kind of race.
31:26It has to be, you know, because this is where we want to go.
31:31And, you know, somewhere, I think, we lost the plot because, I don't know, decades ago, the people in Brussels
31:42stood back and they understood, you know, that chips were going to be the key to everything.
31:49And then the French and the Italian governments came together and they merged their national semiconductor champions to create a
31:57global champion.
31:58We need to start doing that same thing with AI right now.
32:02Yeah, just a quick reaction.
32:04I think we have everything except for one thing.
32:08So we have the talent.
32:10We have the values.
32:11And what we're discovering today is that everything, I mean, without romanticizing too much, you know, what Europe stands for,
32:18but we're discovering today that every single value has a price.
32:21Freedom has a price.
32:22Security has a price.
32:24Privacy has a price.
32:25But we need the European governments to put the money in front of that price because the talent is here.
32:32The innovators are here.
32:34ScaleAway is here.
32:35They just need more money, more funding to scale.
32:39And we need more than one scale away, as he just mentioned.
32:43So everything is ready except for the funding.
32:48So we need to be very creative on how Europe can mobilize more funding behind this innovation so that we
32:56can stand for these values.
32:58And as you said, this will attract people who have the same values from all around the world.
33:03And I think we should stop thinking that by merging different companies to create a single European champion, we will
33:13solve the problem.
33:14And your example on that chipset industry is one of them.
33:19That company has not been able to actually compete with Intel, AMD, Nvidia, etc.
33:27So we have no other competitor in Europe.
33:30So we should stop thinking about creating a single European champion.
33:35We should have multiple players.
33:38So yes, we need obviously more capital.
33:42We need more investment.
33:43Because, I mean, ScaleAway, we're very lucky.
33:45We're part of the Iliad group, as everyone knows.
33:48You probably know Iliad under the name Free in France.
33:51So we have this investment capacity.
33:53Iliad has announced 3 billion investment in cloud and AI for the coming years.
33:59We have this investment capacity.
34:01But we need more than one ScaleAway.
34:03So we need more investment in order to create more champions.
34:06So that we do not rely on a single champion that may fail.
34:12If we have four champions, they won't fail all four of them.
34:16If we have one, there's a risk.
34:20Do you want to say something to me?
34:21Yeah.
34:23Actually, many things, but I will pick one.
34:26What is interesting, I think, with the European shift, which is actually start to operate about the cultural shift,
34:38is that we start to have a real long-term strategy based on trust, like we said, based on also,
34:51so trust, I forgot my idea.
34:57So based on trust, based on talent, obviously.
35:01Based on all the skills we have here.
35:04But also, it's about...
35:10Sorry, I got lost.
35:11It's okay.
35:13It's okay.
35:13Let me start again.
35:14So, I think we have a lot of assets.
35:18So, like I said, talent, trust.
35:21I heard that you said, we need more money and we need more investment from the government.
35:28I think the French government already invest.
35:31It's true at the European level, but what I think, too, is that we have to be creative.
35:40And creativity is also a part of our European culture, and it's also a part of entrepreneur culture.
35:48We need to find different ways to develop our AI.
35:53And one of them is obviously to adopt all these solutions and to convince all large corporations to invest more.
36:02And yesterday, we received a lot of politics who also help with this target,
36:11that's to encourage large corporations to work more with all the solutions we have.
36:17That's true.
36:18And actually, at Scaleway yesterday, we announced that France Television decided to partner with Scaleway for its cloud.
36:24That's the kind of great news we have for Europe and for our sovereignty.
36:31If companies like France Television is able to make a different choice,
36:36not go to AWS, not go to JCP, not go to Azure, but choose a European sovereign cloud for its
36:42infrastructure,
36:43that is a proof to every other company that it is feasible.
36:48This is a proof that they are alternative.
36:51This is a proof that we can win.
36:55Just maybe to add on what he was saying about the company that you mentioned, the merger, and creating one
37:04big European champion,
37:05I think this idea of having one European champion comes from the success of Airbus and the European Space Agency.
37:14I would like just to maybe remind people that this is a very different industry that's very capital intensive.
37:22And even in the US, there's only one other company that does this.
37:26So it's not because for space and for aerospace it worked with one champion,
37:31that it works also in other industries where competition is the main driver of innovation.
37:37So maybe this is the example that is set in stone in the mind of European regulators,
37:45because Airbus is a success, but it works very differently in other industries.
37:51Great point. So I also want to ask the panelists, what role do you think open source will play in
38:01the European AI race?
38:03Damien, I turn to you.
38:05I believe everyone knows I'm a big fan of open source.
38:09Like 25 years ago I decided to open source my own student project,
38:14which was called VLC, VLC Media Player.
38:16I'm sure a lot of you already used that piece of software in the room.
38:20So I'm a big fan of open source.
38:23You know what? I said we need more players on each industry.
38:29Yes. Can we afford redeveloping everything from scratch multiple times for multiple players?
38:35No. So the solution is let's use a lot of open source.
38:40And open source is great because it's also a guarantee in terms of cyber security.
38:46If you have an open source, anyone can check there is no backdoor.
38:52Who can check there is no backdoor in Azure, GCP or AWS? No one.
38:59Who can check there is no backdoor in KVM or Kubernetes or whatever? Everyone.
39:06That's transparency. Is that another value of Europe? Transparency?
39:11And if it is, maybe it's part of our winning strategy.
39:15So if I can add on open source, because from an investor perspective, open source comes with, I would say,
39:21the negative legacy that, you know, the main open source software is usually free.
39:26So there's much less pricing power. And historically, there were very few successful investments in open source.
39:34But I think AI is changing this for two main reasons or maybe three now that he mentioned security.
39:40The other two being, you know, one of the barriers to entry, I think, in AI, where you can see
39:47that almost everything is commoditized.
39:50It's very difficult to build a barrier to entry. Around open source, you have a community.
39:55And I think the community is a strong barrier to entry in AI softwares.
40:03And then the other thing is that the pace of software development in AI is so fast that you need
40:10a community actually to continue developing and keeping up with those innovations as opposed to just one company investing behind
40:19keeping up with the level and the velocity of this innovation.
40:24And when you have a community that's checking all around the world 24-7 to keep up with the innovation,
40:31I think these are really game changers that are putting open source at the forefront of AI today in terms
40:39of investment opportunities as well.
40:41Thank you, Hala. So we're almost out of time.
40:43So I'm going to ask each panelist now to say, you know, whether you are optimistic that Europe will have
40:51a strong place in the global AI race.
40:56And then secondly, what changes do you think will need to be made for Europe to be able to win
41:05these races?
41:06That's very simple. As you can probably guess, I'm very optimistic. And the one thing we need is being optimistic.
41:18If everyone was optimistic, if everyone was letting a chance to Europe to win, I'm sure we will win. No
41:25doubt on that.
41:27Okay, thank you. Hala.
41:29So I am very optimistic. We invest in European champions only. And the one thing we need, I think, I've
41:37said it, is funding.
41:39Because no matter how smart we are, we can maybe fill the gap for half of the funding that we
41:44don't have with the US or other ecosystem.
41:46But we do need the funding as well. So we need more funding.
41:51Julie, you have the last word.
41:52And of course, I'm optimistic. We have everything, talents. We already have tech leaders. So now we just need more
42:01adoption.
42:02Great. And with that, I'd like to ask the audience to give a nice round of applause to our panelists.
42:07Thank you all very much.
42:09Thank you very much.
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