Google CEO Sundar Pichai opened an AI facility in Paris this morning. This hub is in a recently restored building near Google’s Paris headquarters. Approximately 300 researchers and engineers will reside there.
Observing Google’s Paris activities, one may believe it opened an AI research center in 2018. The corporation assured me it wouldn’t develop an AI team for this new center. There is new office space, but the 300 researchers and engineers who will operate from the center were previously at Google Research, DeepMind, YouTube, and Chrome.
However, Bruno Le Maire, the economics minister, and Valérie Pécresse, the Île-de-France president, welcomed Sundar Pichai and congratulated Google on the news.
Let’s analyze this communication attempt because Google’s CEO and government officials were involved. This announcement shows Google’s desire to remain a leading AI talent recruiter.
Google could have emailed workers when they could pick up their new workplace credentials. Instead, the firm saw PR potential. The firm must demonstrate its commitment to AI.
Google believes Paris can attract AI talent for a reason. In recent years, numerous IT companies have established AI research laboratories there. In 2015, Facebook (now Meta) opened a Paris research facility named FAIR, helmed by Yann LeCun, to study AI.
Many academics and engineers have left Big Tech to launch startups since then. Mistral AI, a fledgling business, has raised hundreds of millions of dollars to create new core models.
Paris has a vibrant AI startup environment. Example: Nabla, Dust, Gladia, and Giskard. If they want something else, some of these firms’ employees may join Google in a few years.
Everything is AI now.
It also demonstrates Google’s AI insecurity. This structure will house teams working on AI research and consumer goods like YouTube and Chrome, so Google might have termed it a “Google hub.”
But the business declared it an AI center. They want to be transparent about being an AI firm. The IT company debuted Gemini Ultra, its most powerful big language model. Most people still think about ChatGPT when considering an AI helper.
At a Paris news conference last year, Google introduced Bard, their AI chatbot helper, now dubbed Gemini. The chase after ChatGPT was hastened.
Launching a product was as important as showing that the firm could release an LLM-based chatbot and iterate. Today’s new AI hub continues that approach of frequent AI announcements.
Fair enough, Google isn’t the only tech company making AI investment announcements. Microsoft announced today a €3.2 billion ($3.4 billion) two-year investment in German AI infrastructure in addition to its investment in ChatGPT’s parent firm, OpenAI.
Again, this investment isn’t AI-only. Microsoft will build Azure data centers in Germany. Azure is a major cloud provider with non-AI customers, although some of its offerings are AI-focused. So it’s not just Google.
