France releases new policy to promote AI companies, aiming to achieve full coverage by 2030

The French Ministry of Economy, Finance, Industry and Digital Sovereignty today officially released the "Bravely Embrace Artificial Intelligence (AI): Plan to Promote AI in All Enterprises", announcing that France will fully accelerate the application of AI technology in domestic enterprises and strive to achieve full industry AI coverage by 2030.

Three major goals cover the entire spectrum of enterprises

According to the new plan, by 2030, the French government hopes to achieve the following three goals:

100% of large enterprises realize daily application of AI;

80% of small and medium-sized enterprises (PME) can integrate AI technology into the operation system;

50% of micro-enterprises (TPE) master and actually deploy AI tools.

The release of this plan marks France's strategic leap from "AI R&D country" to "AI full application country", and also highlights Europe's active layout in the global artificial intelligence competition.

Three paths help enterprises to use AI "without barriers"

The French government will promote the AI transformation of enterprises through three means: "publicity, training, and support":

Publicity: Carry out cognitive popularization and demonstration projects for enterprises of different industries and sizes to enhance business owners' understanding of the value of AI applications;

Training: Promote the AI education system for technical managers and front-line employees to lower the skill threshold;

Support: Provide multi-dimensional support such as policy guidance, financial incentives, technology matching, and scenario introduction, especially to help small and medium-sized enterprises with insufficient resources "use it first".

In response to the pain points of enterprises, a practical guide was released last year

In fact, France has long been aware of the "four core pain points" faced by enterprises in the process of AI application: security, timeliness, cost and return on investment. To this end, at the end of 2023, the French General Directorate for Enterprises (DGE) released a series of AI application teaching materials including the "Retrieval Enhanced Generation (RAG) Guide", focusing on helping enterprises solve the problem of how to deploy generative AI in actual business.

In addition, the four teaching materials provide executable examples for different usage scenarios (such as customer service, data management, process automation, etc.) to help enterprises reduce trial and error costs.

French AI strategy: sovereignty, security, and application

The introduction of this promotion plan continues France's consistent policy orientation of "giving equal weight to sovereignty and inclusiveness" in the field of artificial intelligence. The French government not only emphasizes local AI capacity building and data security, but also encourages private enterprises to strengthen cooperation with the national scientific research system to form a globally competitive AI ecosystem.

Bruno Le Maire, Minister of Economy and Finance, said: "Artificial intelligence cannot be the patent of just a few technology giants. It should become the infrastructure for all companies to achieve efficiency and innovation. Through this national plan, France will ensure that both large companies and corner stores can catch the express train of AI development."

"French Path" in the European AI Competition Landscape

Against the background of the EU's unified "AI Act", France's move can be seen as a clear signal to the outside world that "AI application rate is competitiveness". Compared with Germany's emphasis on scientific research and Italy's emphasis on industry orientation, France attempts to create an AI business ecosystem model that "everyone can use and every industry can transfer" with systematic policy design and high coverage goals.