Macron urges Europe to simplify its regulations to get back into the AI race

All eyes were on French President Emmanuel Macron Sunday at the end of the first day of the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit in Paris after he announced a €109 billion investment package (around $112 billion at current exchange rates) in the French AI ecosystem.

He reiterated this financial commitment from private partners willing to build data centers in France (mostly) and invest in AI startups (sometimes). According to him, the main reason why international investors are choosing France for their next massive data center project comes down to the country’s oversupply of nuclear energy.

“I have a good friend on the other side of the ocean saying ‘drill, baby, drill.’ Here, there is no need to drill, it’s just ‘plug, baby, plug,’” Macron said.

But he doesn’t want to make the AI Action Summit all about France. “For me, this summit is not just the announcement of a lot of investment in France. It’s a wake-up call for a European strategy,” he said.

“Tomorrow, President Van der Leyen will announce the European AI strategy and it will be a very important occasion. But this strategy will be a unique opportunity for Europe to accelerate, to simplify our regulations, to deepen the single market and to invest as well in computing capacities,” he added.

As the European Union wants to streamline regulation, Macron also seems to back this line of thinking. “It’s very clear that we have to synchronize with the rest of the world in terms of transmission, in terms of permitting, in terms of authorization, clinical trials — I mean, in all the different sectors.”

Macron also urged European companies to buy from European startups. According to him, most companies in the U.S. and China favor homegrown solutions. But that’s rarely the case in Europe, especially when it comes to technology.

On Tuesday, global leaders and tech CEOs will unveil a new statement. Many will scrutinize both the content and the list of countries signing the pledge at the end of the summit to see if it’s still possible to agree on a list of priorities when it comes to AI regulation.

Read our full coverage of the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit in Paris.