French President Emmanuel Macron has announced his intention to boost the production of advanced chips in the country, aiming to turn France into the technology hub of Europe, CNBC reports.
The first steps in this direction have already been taken - the French SGC Thomson Microelectronics, now known as STMicroelectronics, has already manufactured the first NVIDIA graphics chip in France. However, the company does not currently use leading semiconductor manufacturing technologies, as it mainly deals with chips for cars.
Despite this, Macron has great ambitions for France's ability to produce chips in the 2 to 10 nanometer range.
"If we want to consolidate our industry, we have now to get more and more of the chips at the right scale," the French president said.
Today, only a few companies in the world are capable of manufacturing chips using such advanced processes. To organize such production in France, it is necessary for giants such as TSMC or Samsung to build their own factories there - as is already happening in the United States.
Earlier, at the VivaTech technology event, Macron touted a deal between Thales, Radiall and Foxconn, which are considering setting up a semiconductor assembly and testing plant in France. At the same event, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang announced the company's intention to develop artificial intelligence infrastructure in Europe.
NVIDIA, among others, signed a deal with French startup Mistral AI to build new data centers. Macron called the collaboration a continuation of the development of AI in France, reinforcing the previously announced €109 billion investment.
"We are deepening them [investments] and we are accelerating. And what Mistral AI and Nvidia announced this morning is a game-changer as well," Macron said in an interview with CNBC.