Considering AI Diversity in Paris, 2025 (Part 1)

Hello, I'm Kana Nakano from Dentsu Lab Tokyo. As part of the lab's R&D activities, I visited "Viva Technology 2025," Europe's largest tech event, held in Paris, France from June 11 to 14, 2025. In Part 1, I'll focus on the event's atmosphere and the keynote speeches.

What kind of event is Viva Technology?

Viva Technology (commonly known as VivaTech) is Europe's largest technology event, held annually in early summer at Porte de Versailles (Paris Expo Porte de Versailles). Though a relatively new event launched in 2016, this year's attendance exceeded 180,000, with its scale growing year by year.

This event builds on the French government's startup support policy "La French Tech," launched in 2013, positioning itself as a place where startups, large corporations, and investors connect. It is organized by the Publicis Groupe and LVMH Group's media company, Les Echos Le Parisien Groupe.

AI is not a trend, but a force that transforms business

The event opened with speeches by Maurice Lévy, Honorary Chairman of Publicis Groupe, and Pierre Louet, CEO of L'Édition/Le Parisien. They emphasized that VivaTech is a crucial platform generating 25-30% of annual leads (business opportunities) for companies.

This year saw a roughly 40% increase in AI-related exhibits overall. Their comment that "AI is no longer a trend, but a tangible force fundamentally transforming business" was particularly striking. Furthermore, French Minister for Digital Affairs and AI Clara Chappaz also took the stage. She stated, "The world now gathers at VivaTech, not Las Vegas," highlighting France as the optimal place for technology companies to grow.

Canada's Initiatives as "Country of the Year"

Canada was this year's special guest country. Minister of Digital Innovation and Artificial Intelligence Evan Solomon took the stage, impressively stating, "AI isn't for AI's sake, but for good." The Canadian government plans to invest $2.4 billion in the AI sector and an additional $2 billion in an AI Safety Institute. Building a secure digital environment that protects sovereignty appears to be a major theme moving forward.

Canada pioneered the world's first national AI strategy and ranks among the global leaders in AI research achievements, including Nobel laureate Professor Geoffrey Hinton. Over 600 tech leaders and more than 100 AI-related companies were dispatched to this year's VivaTech.

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang Speaks on "The Future of AI"

During the keynote address, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang took the stage. He positioned AI as "the foundational technology of a new industrial revolution," stating it will bring significant changes to society and industry.
He explained that data centers will evolve beyond mere data storage to function as "AI factories" mass-producing the smallest units of intelligence, called "tokens." Production of the next-generation AI platform "GB 200 NVL72," announced last year, is already progressing at a rate of 1,000 units per week.

In the quantum computing field, "CUDA-Q" now supports the "GB 200 NVL72." Hybrid computing combining GPUs (graphics processing units) and QPUs (quantum processing units) will form the foundation for future research and development.

Furthermore, Mr. Fan touched upon NVIDIA's evolution as a "simulation" company grounded in physical laws. By leveraging simulation technology, it becomes possible to create digital twins of anything and perform design, optimization, and operation within virtual spaces. Applications are already operational in areas such as robot training environments, warehouse logistics simulations, and synthetic data generation for autonomous vehicles.

Europe's Vision for an "Autonomous AI Ecosystem"

CEO Fan also participated in a special session with Arthur Mensch, CEO of the French LLM (Large Language Model) startup Mistral AI. He stated, "Intelligence is a culture born from a nation's own data. It belongs to the nation like its land and cannot be outsourced." Mensch echoed this, emphasizing the importance of building Europe's own AI: "It is absolutely unacceptable for foreign companies to hold the keys to systems concerning critical infrastructure like defense, energy, and government services."

NVIDIA and Mistral AI are currently building a data center in France, intended to become a hub for European AI development. President Macron also took the stage, stating, "This is a fight for our sovereignty and strategic autonomy. We need services and infrastructure to maintain our cloud, data centers, computing power, and intelligence." He demonstrated the French government's full support for this initiative.

Amid increasingly unstable global conditions and the growing concentration of data and AI technology by major tech companies, particularly those based in the US, the first day conveyed a sense of crisis among nations regarding AI's integration into the core of businesses and nations, alongside the determination to seize the potential business opportunities it presents.