Faced with American domination and the surge of AI, the government wants to push the French cloud

2024-03-22 15:45:00

Bringing the French cloud into the era of generative AI. This is essentially the will of the government. During the digital meetings in Strasbourg this Friday, the Secretary of State for Digital presented a call for projects to strengthen the offer of cloud services, in order to overcome the acceleration of artificial intelligence.

The objective is to create more links between cloud providers (OVH, Scaleway, Outscale, Orange) and AI software developers, “and to more broadly bring together all private cloud players with research and public computing centers”, specified Marina Ferrari’s office, during a press conference organized ahead of the event. This call for projects will finance R&D expenses.

The amount of aid has not yet been communicated, because it will depend on the type of projects proposed, specifies the firm. But the investments are part of the envelope of 600 million euros devoted by the State to the ecosystem.

French AI nuggets depend on the American cloud

The wave of generative AI, which accelerated at the end of 2022 with the launch of ChatGPT, has indeed given new importance to the subject of the cloud. These large language models require colossal computing power and a lot of data (therefore available in the cloud). And if French companies, like Mistral or Photoroom, manage to position themselves in the sector, they often depend on American cloud providers. AWS (Amazon), Azure (Microsoft) and Google Cloud capturing 70% of the market and 80% of its growth.

Even if Marina Ferrari’s office recalls that the size of the French market increased by more than 50% between 2020 and 2022. Furthermore, the main French players are gaining maturity. Both OVH and Outscale (Dassault Systèmes) obtained SecNumCloud 3.2 certification a few months ago, the highest French cybersecurity standard, awarded by the National Information Systems Security Agency (Anssi). In terms of technical infrastructure, however, they remain well below the Americans. OVH is, for example, not one of the first commercial partners that can benefit from Nvidia’s new chip.

In parallel with the presentation of this call for projects, Marina Ferrari also announced the selection of 29 new winners of Sec Num Cloud support. The objective is to ” to mature » SME publishers of software and platforms in terms of security, specifies the office of the Secretary of State.

The Secretary of State also recalled that the Important Project of Common European Interest (IPIEC) on the Cloud was officially launched this Friday. This investment program was announced in December, but the first general assembly was held today in Brussels with almost all of the participants, specifies his office. Its budget of 2.6 billion euros (1.2 billion public investment and 1.4 billion private investment) should make it possible to develop new technologies for the cloud and edge computing. In total, 19 projects (from 7 States) are supported, including some for the French Orange, Amadeus and Eviden (Atos).

Digital sovereignty, OVHcloud’s argument stronger than ever in the cloud battle

Favor the French cloud, but not for the Health Data Hub

This Friday’s announcements are in continuity with the line announced in September 2022. Before this date, the government had opted for a strategy of partnerships with Gafam, by encouraging companies to subscribe to their “Trusted Cloud” offers. Then, Jean-Noël Barrot, then successor to Cedric O as Secretary of State for Digital Affairs, then adjusted the discourse by massively supporting French actors in the name of digital sovereignty and data security.

Paradoxically, this “national strategy” did not prevent the choice of Microsoft to host the Health Data Hub. A decision bitterly regretted by certain companies in the sector (Clever Cloud, Cleyrop, Nexidy) who contacted the Council of State on March 19 to try to overturn the CNIL’s decision on this subject.

Hosting health data at Microsoft: French companies are stepping up to the plate and taking the matter to the Council of State