Artificial Intelligence is presented, around the summit gathered in Paris, as a succession of blows. There was ChatGPT, then DeepSeek and again last week Le Chat de Mistral AI. And to compare the speed, the cost and the open source status or not of each one. The generative dimension of AI is essential because it is what reaches the general public by facilitating the writing of texts, the creation of drawings or even videos.
However, even if we perceive the rupture that this entails, it does not seem to be related to the considerable amounts that have been recently mentioned. The Stargate program in the USA was associated with the amount of 500 billion dollars, Emmanuel Macron communicated on a figure of 109 billion euros in France with in particular a DataCenter whose cost would be between 30 and 50 billion.
These figures reflect the idea that AI is a much broader field than just generative AI. Moreover, European AIs shine in health and climate, reflecting an ability to respond to the specific challenges of these sectors.
These investments in the USA, Europe, China and elsewhere reflect the possibility of a change of regime in the functioning of the economy and society. The processing of information can thus appear as a real industrial revolution. And we must be part of it, we must be actors in this rupture under penalty of being dominated by another large region of the world.
The AI revolution is much faster and more widespread than that at the turn of the 19th century. A partial measure of this adaptation indicates that generative AI is used far more by Americans after 2 years than the laptop and the Internet were.
If it is an industrial revolution, we must participate in it and be actors in our own history and consequently a lot of investment to adapt our production systems to this new framework. France also has a particular effort to make because SMEs and ETIs are less well equipped in AI than their European partners.
We must both catch up on the delays we have already incurred, as Mario Draghi said in his report on productivity in Europe, and continue to invest to stay in the race.
This has two major consequences.
The additional investment (5 points of GDP, Draghi said) must be sustained over time, requiring trade-offs with other expenditures. Financing cannot be achieved solely through additional debt.
The second point is that of financing. Until now, financing has been dependent on flows from the United States; it would be necessary to refocus them on Europe via the Capital Markets Union, which would in particular allow the recycling of the 3 points of GDP of savings in excess of investment.
It is up to Europe to set out to increase its economic and political autonomy. The stakes are high and essential.