France appoints artificial intelligence minister

France has appointed its first female minister artificial intelligence (AI) amid political upheaval and as the country positions itself to become a global leader in the technology. Clara ChappazCEO of government start-up entity La French Tech, will take over as Secretary of State for AI and Digitalization.

“I am delighted to continue my commitment to public action on these major issues of digitalization and artificial intelligence.,” she said in a LinkedIn post on Sunday.

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France wants to become a reference in AI

The position previously did not include AI in the title, highlighting France’s ambition to lead in the technology and meet President Emmanuel Macron’s ambition to transform Paris into the “city of AI”.

Since US firm OpenAI launched ChatGPT in 2022, France has been promoting its own generative AI (GenAI) rivals, such as Mistral AI and H. France will also host the International AI Summit in February, following the previous two in the UK and Seoul.

Last year, France published a national AI strategy with €500 million to be invested in creating AI clusters by 2030.

Between the dissolution of France’s National Assembly in early June and the eventual appointment of Michel Barnier as prime minister earlier this month, the tech ecosystem was largely left in a state of limbo as to who the next digital minister would be.

About Clara Chappaz

Chappaz, 35, will report to the Ministry of Higher Education and Research rather than the Ministry of Economy and Finance, as was the case under his predecessor.

She has an impressive track record as a director at La French Tech, and in her three-year tenure, she created an optional parity pact that has been signed by over 700 startups to date.

It imposes a minimum quota of 20 percent women on boards of directors by 2025 and requires all managers to be trained on diversity issues and the fight against discrimination and harassment.

Prior to her appointment at La French Tech, she was the business director of luxury second-hand clothing site Vestiaire Collective and also founded a second-hand children’s clothing marketplace, Lullaby. She is also an alumnus of Harvard Business School.