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"Paris has spent more than two thousand years reinventing itself. From industrial powerhouse to global cultural center, the city has repeatedly adapted to new eras of transformation. Today, it faces another turning point: how to position itself at the center of the AI and innovation economy while remaining a livable, attractive, and resilient metropolis. What role can technology play in reshaping mobility, energy, infrastructure, and public services? What does a city built for the AI era actually look like? And how does a historic capital prepare for the next decade of competition between global cities?
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TechTranscript
00:00Hello everyone, thank you for being here. I'm delighted to be with you today for
00:04this special edition because it's a great anniversary for VivaTech,
00:10for Publicis also but for VivaTech, the 10 years anniversary. I'm very happy to
00:15welcome Valérie Pécresse, president of Paris region, we could say governor,
00:21sometimes it's better understood abroad to say governor of Paris region, who is
00:26actually also making 10 years of leadership, so it's a double anniversary
00:31today for VivaTech and for you, 10 years anniversary. Thank you for being with us,
00:36it's great to speak with you today. I would like to start by your very simple
00:41question but important because you were here since the day one and you've been
00:47partnering with this event since the first day, so what does this partnership
00:51mean to you personally and for the region? It's an initiative that was
00:59supported by the region since day one because when I was elected, I was elected
01:05in December 2015 and then there was the CS of Las Vegas. Some of you may have been
01:13to the CS of Las Vegas, the Consumer Electronics Show of Las Vegas and I came
01:18back from the CS where I met someone, I met Maurice Levy from Publicis and then
01:24several months after that, he came to see me and he said I want to have the
01:31Consumer Electronics Show of Paris, I want to create VivaTech and he said I want to
01:38see the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron and he's very much in favor of the
01:44idea and we need the region. We need the region because the region is going to be
01:48the host of this event and we want you to partner, meaning we want money.
01:54Yes, with Maurice. So we want money and we said of course yes because why did we say
02:02yes? Because we thought that it would enable us to show to show the world that the
02:09Paris region was and is the innovation hub of Europe and that it will also enable our
02:18startups, our French tech to showcase all their savoir faire and that they will be
02:26put on the stage as I am today and they will they will be presented to the world. So
02:34of course I said yes, of course we started this little startup 10 years ago and now as
02:40you can say it's a scale-up, it's a unicorn because we are now ahead of CES, we host 200
02:50,000
02:51people every year and every year it is growing and it is now a world appointment for deep tech
03:00and it shows to the world that in Paris we're not only about luxury, food and culture, we are about
03:11deep tech. We are the capital city of mathematics, we are the capital city of physics, we are the
03:19capital city then and thus of AI, quantum and today I will have the pleasure to launch
03:30a big project with Alain Aspect, Nobel Prize of Physics 2022, we are going to launch the
03:38house of quantum. House of quantum is going to be the hub of quantum in Paris-Saclay in our
03:46Paris Science Park. In the south of Paris. In the south of Paris and we're going to launch the house
03:54of quantum.
03:55Why? Because we have to gather all our talents, all our startups, all our labs in one single place
04:03in order to attract the investors. As you know also maybe Paris region is the second region in the world
04:11for the attractiveness of foreign investments. And so we are determined to industrialize our deep tech
04:23and not be only a region of science, a region of innovation, but also a region of production, a region
04:29of infrastructure.
04:31And that's what we're going to do with the quantum, the quantum house. So if I can tell the names
04:38of our startups,
04:39it's of course Pascal, Candela, Alice and Bob, C12, and they explore the whole universe of quantum and the whole
04:50technological solutions that will lead to a quantum computer.
04:55I'm not sure that people realize that we are in the second place actually. And it's a very good ranking.
05:02How has the Paris region transformed for the last 10 years? Have you seen like a rhythm, a speed in
05:09the way you
05:10transform this region on technologies?
05:12Yes, there has been a huge scale up. And I must say we have a President of the Republic who
05:20is very much pro-business.
05:22And you are in a region that is also pro-business. And this alignment has created an ecosystem that is
05:32very favorable to entrepreneurship.
05:35We are a region of entrepreneurs. At the moment, we have 25,000 startups created in Ile-de-France. 25
05:46,000.
05:47We have 150 incubators for these startups. We weigh 80% of French fundraising. So that's huge. That's huge.
06:00And we have to tell it to the world. Because the world doesn't know. Because the world sees us as
06:06a great place for tourism.
06:07The city of love. We are the city of love. But we are also the city of Silicon. And we
06:15have also the city of brains.
06:17We have a talent pool that is extraordinary. A talent pool that attracts all the big research centers of all
06:26the biggest firms in the world.
06:30That's not by chance that Microsoft, Google, Meta, OpenAI, Tata Group of India put their European AI lab in Paris.
06:43They put their AI lab because the talents are there. The research is there.
06:51Yann Lequin, Arthur Mensch, Mistral AI. And we are the place where AI is being conceived and being created in
07:07Europe.
07:07And we want even more people to come. As you know, we have the biggest tax rebate for research investments
07:16in Europe.
07:17That's called the Crédit Impôt Recherche. I'm very proud because I tripled it when I was Minister for Higher Education
07:23and Research 20 years ago.
07:25So, yes, yes, we are the place to be.
07:30Okay, so you can quote Valérie Peclet saying, Paris is a city of love, but also brand, okay? Not only
07:36love. I love it.
07:39Looking at the future, 10 next years, you're going to face still, Paris region will face a lot of challenges
07:46to maintain this level, this strength in terms of leadership, in terms of AI, in terms of innovation.
07:52And one of them challenges is sovereignty, okay? Because, of course, it's a competitive landscape. So, what does sovereignty mean
08:03for Paris region? And how are you building the capabilities to stay in the race from, I would say, infrastructure
08:10to talent?
08:12I think, as everybody in this room, I was very preoccupied when I heard about the decision of Donald Trump
08:20to forbid the use of Entropic AI, new tools of Entropic, to foreigners.
08:31It means that we need to develop a sovereign European AI. And that's not tomorrow. That's today. So, we need
08:43sovereignty. We need sovereign infrastructures. And that's what we're going to build.
08:49Maybe you've heard about Choose France. Choose France is a big summit that is organized by the President of the
08:56Republic in Versailles and where all foreign investors come.
09:00And in the last Choose France, there were announcements of the installation of huge data centers in France. And 40
09:11% of them are going to be in Ile de France, of course, because we need these data centers for
09:16our super calculators and for our brains.
09:19And these infrastructures are going to work in Ile de France. But we also need to consolidate our supply chain.
09:33And to consolidate our supply chain, we need to produce and manufacture in Ile de France all the components of
09:42our future AI.
09:44And it means building chips in Ile de France. Things that we have not been doing for decades. Because 30
09:54years ago, 20 years ago, there were thinkers that thought of a fabulous region in Ile de France and that
10:03the factories should be installed in other countries.
10:07Because the factories were polluting. Because the factories were polluting and the factories had this environmental footprint that made them
10:16undesirable in big urban regions.
10:21This was a complete mistake. This is a dead end. We need to manufacture in Ile de France.
10:29That's what I went to tell the Taiwanese industry one week ago. One week ago, there was Computech in Taipei.
10:39Computech in Taipei is the vivatech of Taipei. And I was there. I was there to tell them that if
10:44they want to put their data centers in Ile de France, if they want to sell their Asus computers and
10:52their BenQ device to French administrations, which is the case at the moment,
10:59they will have to manufacture in Europe. They will have to manufacture in Europe. And what did they tell me?
11:06They told me that, oh, it's normal. It's normal that you Europeans ask for a sovereign manufacturing made in France.
11:14It's normal. It's normal. That's what the Indians told us. That's what the Brazilians told us. And that's what the
11:20Americans told us. They told us if we want to sell in America, in India or in Brazil, you have
11:25to manufacture local.
11:27And we need in Europe to be stronger on this point, to be more strict on this point. We have
11:36to force our suppliers to manufacture locally.
11:45Locally. And it's very important. It's very important for employment. But it's also very important, you said it, for sovereignty.
11:53And to have a safe supply chain now is going to be absolutely decisive.
12:00Decisive. So we can see that you care about infrastructure and capabilities. But I know you quite well. And I
12:08know that you also care about people's lives.
12:13Because it's a lot of people in this region. How do you ensure that innovation improves people's daily lives? That
12:21is not only for entrepreneurs and companies, but also people in your region.
12:29Actually, I try to put technology at the heart of our public policies. For example, when we did some challenges
12:39with AI. AI challenges. What is an AI challenge? An AI challenge is the region asking a question, a societal
12:48question.
12:49For example, how do you read an X-ray radio? How do you read it with AI more precisely than
12:59the human eye in order to prevent the coming back of a cancer, for example, or breast cancer?
13:07That was the first challenge. That was the first challenge that we launched on health with Gustave Rossi, which is
13:13a big oncology center in the south of Paris. And Gustave Rossi told the question, how do you read the
13:22X-ray, the X-rays photographs?
13:26And the startups had to answer the question. And the startup that answers the question wins a prize and is
13:36a partner of Gustave Rossi. And the startup which answered the question at that time of this first AI challenge
13:44was Okin. Okin, as you know, is now a unicorn, a Parisian unicorn.
13:50And at that time they were small. And the million euro that the region made put in this AI challenge
13:58was a starter for them. It was their first contract. It was a public contract.
14:04And we did a lot of AI challenges on questions of public interest. For example, how can we manage the
14:16flaws in public transportation? And we did this AI challenge. How do we insert green energy in the energy mix
14:29of RTE?
14:31RTE is the big energy network of France. How do we do not to have what happened in Spain last
14:39year, meaning a big shutdown of electricity because they were not able to modelize sufficiently precisely how green energy coming
14:51on the network would impact the network?
14:53And as you know, French energy is nuclear, which is a huge asset for us because we have cheap and
14:59clean energy. But we also develop green energies and these green energies will come in the network. So how do
15:07we do that?
15:08And we do also quantum challenges as well. So we help the startups to develop their products, but with a
15:19public use. And of course, the region is in charge of all the big networks. We are in charge of
15:25education.
15:26So we use technology in our big networks. For example, education. We are in charge of nearly 500 high schools
15:38in the France. It means 500,000 pupils. And to these pupils, we gave new tools, new learning tools.
15:51Of course, of course, including AI, for example, at the moment, we are experimenting for teachers, the use of AI
15:59to help for correcting the homeworks or correcting the works. I don't know how you call that exam.
16:08Exams. Exams, yes. Exams, exercises. So we are trying to do that with teachers in order to help them in
16:16their work and do a more personalized correction of homeworks.
16:23And we are also implementing AI to help the students and the pupils and to ask them questions to know
16:30if they have understood their lessons before preparing the tests.
16:34It's very concrete. Yes. Deep tech is very concrete. Yes. It can help in every field of daily life. And
16:44it's very, very useful.
16:46Yes. But what about the jobs? Because we all know that there is there is a friction here where we
16:51can see, yes, some jobs that are emerging.
16:52But we can also feel that especially you're just talking about the young, the young people, they kind of afraid
16:58of what's going on with AI.
16:59So how can you help people in your region adapt so they're not afraid about what's happening right now with
17:07AI?
17:08Before adapting, we have to put a diagnosis, a diagnosis of how AI is going to change work life. And
17:18we don't know yet.
17:19No. And we have to do research on that. Because everybody's talking. But who knows, actually. So we are launching
17:29in Ile de France, we are financing searchers Antonin Bergeau in High Paris.
17:38High Paris is a big incubator in Jouy-en-jeu-zas in Paris-Saclay and in HEC. And Antonin Bergeau
17:47is working with his lab on the future of work with AI.
17:52And the objective of the region, which is in charge of orientating all the pupils, the school pupils, and telling
18:03them where to do their studies, which are the jobs that are going to be the jobs of the future.
18:09And we have this mission of orientation. And so as we have this mission, we have to know which jobs
18:17are going to be useful tomorrow, which are the jobs that will remain, or the jobs with a human fiber
18:25where the human person cannot be replaced, which are the jobs that are going to be augmented by AI.
18:32Because we are going to be all more intelligent with AI. And we have to use AI to be more
18:39clever. Because if we don't use it, we're going to lose productivity. So we have not to be afraid of
18:44AI, but to incorporate AI in our daily work.
18:48That's for the people who are going to be augmented by AI. And there are jobs that are going to
18:56be replaced by AI, as there were jobs replaced by robotics. And we have to know which jobs in order
19:04to change also and convert our training policies.
19:09And of course, open new curriculums where they are needed and close curriculums where they are not needed.
19:18That would be very interesting as soon as you have all the resources to come back here on this stage
19:22and to explain to us what are the results of everything that you have studied with this session.
19:26I will give you the results of this study.
19:27That's great. That's great. That's a rendezvous. Just a word to conclude. Looking at the next decade again, what makes
19:33you confident? What will enable Paris region to just not adapt, but shape the future of AI?
19:40Well, you know that London chose to get out of the European Union also 10 years ago. And it makes
19:54Paris the only global metropolis left within the European Union.
19:59What is a global metropolis? A global metropolis is a political hub. It's an economical hub. It's an innovation hub.
20:07And it's a financial hub.
20:09And it's also a cultural beacon. And this you can find in Paris, nowhere else in Europe. And that's why
20:17I am quite confident that the quality of life in Paris, we are now building 300 new kilometers of metro
20:29lines in order to have a better life in Paris.
20:32All the investments that we are making in ecological transition to be one of the most ecological metropolis in Europe.
20:40All this is based on the quality of life because attracting investment is also attracting people. And to attract people,
20:48you have to have the best quality of life, the best quality of cities.
20:53So that's why we are investing very much on that. And I'm sure that's going to be a huge factor
21:00of attraction. But I must say also, and very loudly, bureaucracy is something that can kill the place of Paris
21:10if we don't reform our state and all the red tape.
21:16So that's why we choose Paris region, my attractiveness agency, we take the potential investors and we take them by
21:24hand and we help them. We help them with red tape.
21:27Because, of course, in Europe and in France, we have this culture of red tape. And if we cut red
21:34tape a little bit, we'll be even more agile and a little bit maybe of fiscality.
21:40But it's, I told you, there is the Crédit Impot Recherche. So we already have a tax rebate for searches.
21:47So I'm not sure it's a fiscal issue, but it's a red tape issue. And we have to cut a
21:53little bit of red tape.
21:54But otherwise, I'm sure we have all the assets to be growing and to have the tech flourishing in Ile
22:01-de-France.
22:02Thank you very much, Valérie. Merci beaucoup, Valérie Pécresse.
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