Can Paris dethrone London as Europe’s tech champion? Oui
From fDi Beyond Borders
Welcome everyone to a new episode of Beyond Borders.
This week we look at the London–Paris tech rivalry in Europe. London has long been the dominant European start-up hub. Even when it comes to artificial intelligence, few other countries can boast the UK’s cutting-edge research and talent – France is hardly among them. And yet, there are two things that may turn the table upside down. France’s surplus of electricity is big enough to accommodate ambitious plans for new data centre capacity, a must-have for the development and deployment of AI models. A French large language model maker, Mistral, can act as a catalyst of the national AI ecosystem. On top of that, president Macron has repeatedly shown steady commitment to developing it, championing a €109bn AI investment plan launched in February. Will this be enough for Paris to challenge London’s European tech crown? Justin Pugsley set out looking for answers in the piece below.
Elsewhere, Alex discussed the UK’s special economic zone patchwork with the minister for local growth of the British government, while Danielle continued to follow the efforts by a dozen US importers to stop Trump’s tariffs via legal proceedings on the ground he doesn’t have the power to bypass Congress when it comes to introducing import levies.
That’s it for this week. We love to hear from our readers, get in touch at [email protected].
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| TECHNOLOGY |
| Will AI tilt the balance in the London-Paris tech rivalry? France has the power and start-ups it needs to challenge the UK as Europe’s main tech hub |
| INTERVIEW |
| UK SEZs not a ‘magic silver bullet’ The UK’s junior minister for local growth on consolidating the country’s free zonesRead |
| HOT TAKE WITH VICTOR SCHWARTZ |
| Victor Schwartz is the founder of wine wholesaler VOS Selections |
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