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This morning , Google ’s CEO Sundar Pichai inaugurated a new hub in Paris dedicated to unreal intelligence . This hub is located in a newly renovated edifice near Google ’s main office in Paris . It will host around 300 researchers and engineers .
But if you pay close attending to Google ’s whereabouts in Paris , you may retrieve that Google already launched an AI research centre in Parisback in 2018 . In fact , the company tell me that it does n’t plan to create a new AI team for this new hub . There ’s some new office place , but the squad of 300 researchers and locomotive engineer who are blend to work from the Modern hub were already working for Google Research and DeepMind — as well as YouTube and Chrome .
And yet , several high - profile government activity member , such as Bruno Le Maire ( the pastor of the saving ) and Valérie Pécresse ( the president of the Île - de - France region ) were there to receive Sundar Pichai and congratulate Google on the promulgation .
Given the involvement of Google ’s top leader and politics members , permit ’s dissect this communicating effort . With the positioning of this announcement , Google want to remain near the top of the listing when it comes to attracting AI endowment .
Google could have sent an e-mail to its employees to tell them when they can cull up their badge for the new position . Instead , the society decide that it was a PR opportunity . The company call for to show that it give care about AI and that it ’s a priority .
And there ’s a grounds why Google thinks it can attract AI talent in Paris . Over the retiring few years , several technical school giants have prepare up AI research research lab there . In addition to Google , Facebook ( now Meta ) create its Paris enquiry labback in 2015with Yann LeCun at the helm of the AI enterprisingness — this enquiry mathematical group is called FAIR , for Facebook Artificial Intelligence Research .
Since then , many researchers and engineers left their jobs at Big Tech companies to create startup . Mistral AI is arguably the most emblematic example of that as the young startup has alreadyraised hundreds of millionsof dollars to develop raw foundational models .
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But there’sa thriving ecosystem of AI startups in Paris . instance includeNabla , Dust , GladiaandGiskard . In just a few years , some of the masses working for these startups could also choose to figure out for Google if they ’re look for something a bit dissimilar .
Everything is AI now
At the same time , it prove once again that Google is insecure about hokey intelligence information . Given that this edifice will host teams work not only on AI research projection but also on consumer product like YouTube and Chrome , Google could have simply call in it a “ Google hub . ”
But the company decided that this was an AI hub . They want to say loud and clear that they are an AI company . for certain , the tech giantjust launched Gemini Ultra , its most knock-down declamatory voice communication model to date . But most people still think about ChatGPT when they think about an AI assistant .
A year agoat a insistence conference in Paris , Google unveiled Bard , its AI chatbot supporter that is now call Gemini . It was a rushed crusade to catch up with ChatGPT .
But it was as much about launching a mathematical product as it was about planting a flagstone that evince that the caller is up to of unblock an LLM - based chatbot — and then ingeminate . You could look at that today ’s new AI hub is the sequel of that strategy of regular announcements about AI .
To be fair , Google is n’t the only technical school giant making magisterial gestures about AI investment funds . In addition to its fiscal commitment in ChatGPT ’s parent fellowship OpenAI , Microsoft alsoannounced todaya € 3.2 billion ( $ 3.4 billion ) investment over the next two years in AI infrastructure in Germany .
Once again , this investment funds is n’t focalise on artificial intelligence exclusively . Microsoft plans to create data center in Germany for its Azure swarm platform . Some of Azure ’s mathematical product are focused on AI , but it ’s a much heavy swarm supplier with guest that have nothing to do with the AI industry . So it ’s not just a Google thing .
