Global political and tech leaders grapple with AI at Paris summit

Political and tech industry leaders arrived in Paris on Monday for a two-day summit* on artificial intelligence* (AI), looking for common ground on the revolutionary* technology set to remake business and society across the world.

Co-hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the summit aims to lay the groundwork for governing the growing sector, as global powers race to play leading roles in the fast-developing technology.

The meeting of around 1500 guests in the French capital’s opulent* Grand Palais* will feature lectures and panels discussing the promises and challenges posed by AI.

Political leaders, including US Vice President JD Vance and Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing, will meet with the likes of OpenAI boss Sam Altman and Google chief Sundar Pichai.

Selected companies, academics and non-profit groups will also showcase their work with AI at stands around the vast space decked out with screens and geodesic domes.

A TURNING POINT
Two years since OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot launched able to respond to all kinds of language prompts, “artificial intelligence fuels both immense hopes and, at times, exaggerated fear,” Macron’s AI envoy* Anne Bouverot told guests as she opened the summit.

She promised a “turning point” that would bring more countries on board with AI development, which until now has been restricted to a few advanced economies.

“Sustainable development” of the resource- and energy-hungry technology was also on the agenda, she said.

“We know that AI can help mitigate* climate change, but we also know that its current trajectory* is unsustainable,” Bouverot said.

MAIN PLAYERS
President Macron had on Sunday spruiked* the benefits of artificial intelligence and French efforts in the field.

In a TV interview, he announced “109 billion euros ($AUD113 billion) of investment in artificial intelligence in the coming years” in France.

He added that the investment was “the equivalent for France of what the US has announced with Stargate,” the $US 500-billion program led by ChatGPT maker OpenAI and announced by incoming President Donald Trump, who said the project would build computing infrastructure* such as data centres.

These vast buildings concentrate in one place the data storage and processing power needed to develop and run the most advanced AI models.

Chinese start-up DeepSeek stunned Silicon Valley* with its low-cost, high-performance AI models.

“Europe has to find a way to take a position, take some initiative and take back control,” said Boston Consulting Group’s Sylvain Duranton.

Technical challenges and barriers to entry for nations hoping to keep up with the AI race have become clearer in recent weeks.

European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen was expected to announce around 10 public supercomputers designed for use by researchers and start-ups attending the summit.

GLOBAL GOVERNANCE PUZZLE
A group of countries, companies and philanthropic* organisations said on Sunday they would pump $400 million into a partnership called Current AI to foster “public interest” approaches to the technology.

Current AI aimed to raise as much as $2.5 billion for its mission to grant AI developers access to more data, offer open-source* tools and infrastructure for programmers to build on, and “develop systems to measure AI’s social and environmental impact”.

“We’ve seen the harms of unchecked tech development and the transformative potential it holds when aligned* with the public interest,” Current AI founder Martin Tisne said.

On Tuesday local time, political leaders from around 100 countries will hold a plenary* session, with notable attendees including Mr Modi, Mr Vance, Mr Zhang and Ms von der Leyen.

France hopes governments will agree on voluntary commitments to make AI sustainable and environmentally friendly.

But any agreement may prove elusive* between blocs as diverse as the European Union, United States, China and India, each with different priorities in tech development and regulation*.

WATCH THE FRENCH PRESIDENT’S FAKE AI-GENERATED VIDEO

POLL

GLOSSARY

• summit: conference or event that gathers experts and leaders in the industry to share ideas and have a conversation on a very specific topic or issue
• artificial intelligence: AI is the ability of a computer system to perform tasks that would normally require human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, and making decisions
• revolutionary: completely new, having a huge impact and marking a radical change
• opulent: luxurious, lavish, palatial, very costly and grand
• Grand Palais: designated a historic monument in 2000, the exhibition hall and museum complex was built between the Champs-Élysées and the Seine River in Paris for the Universal Exhibition in 1900
• envoy: someone sent to represent one government or organisation to another
• mitigate: reduce the effects of something, making it less harmful, painful, unpleasant or bad
• trajectory: the path or course something is travelling along as it moves forward
• spruiked: speaking publicly on a topic, usually to sell or positively promote it
• Silicon Valley: area in California in the USA that is home to a large number of tech companies and innovative start-ups, including big names like Apple, Facebook and Google
• philanthropic: relating to people and organisations that give money to help people and causes
• open-source: computer coding that is designed to be publicly accessible so that anyone can see, modify and distribute the code
• aligned: reached a state of unity or agreement about something
• plenary: full, complete, total, as in all members, delegates or attendees are present
• elusive: difficult to find, describe, remember or achieve
• regulation: an official or legislated rule, principle, or condition that governs procedure or behaviour

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QUICK QUIZ

1. How many euros did President Macron pledge to invest in AI in France?
2. What is Stargate and how much will be invested in the new US project?
3. Which new Chinese AI tool stunned US tech and the world?
4. What is the newly announced Current AI group’s mission?
5. Why might international AI commitments prove elusive?

LISTEN TO THIS STORY

CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1. Governing artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence can be used to revolutionise processes and systems, but also has its faults and ways to scam people with its advanced technology.

Work with a classmate and come up with your top six rules that could be agreed upon by governments around the world to protect people using AI.

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2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

Time: allow 20 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Digital Technologies, Personal and Social, Critical and Creative Thinking

2. Extension
Think of some ways AI could be used for good to help poorer countries keep abreast of this new technology:

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Time: allow 10 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Digital Technologies, Personal and Social, Critical and Creative Thinking

VCOP ACTIVITY
Wow word recycle
There are plenty of wow words (ambitious pieces of vocabulary) being used in the article. Some are in the glossary, but there might be extra ones from the article that you think are exceptional as well.

Identify all the words in the article that you think are not common words, and particularly good choices for the writer to have chosen.

Select three words you have highlighted to recycle into your own sentences.

If any of the words you identified are not in the glossary, write up your own glossary for them.

Extension
Find a bland sentence from the article to up-level. Can you add more detail and description? Can you replace any base words with more specific synonyms?

Down-level for a younger audience. Find a sentence in the article that is high level. Now rewrite it for a younger audience so they can understand the words without using the glossary.