About the event
Organisers: The Alan Turing Institute and French Tech UK
Date: 16 January 2018 Time: 09:00 – 12:00
Venue: The Alan Turing Institute Registration for this event is now closed – you can join the conference via our live streaming channel - Turing’s YouTube channel
Please see the agenda here. France and the UK have both taken significant steps to take full advantage of the AI revolution, and a new conference on 16 January aims to catalyse cooperation between these two leading AI nations. Organised by The Alan Turing Institute and London French Tech Hub, the first Franco-British conference on AI will bring together French and UK leading incubators, investors, entrepreneurs and policymakers. Cédric Villani (French MP and 2010 Fields Medal winner) and Jérôme Pesenti (CEO, Benevolent Tech), major actors in both countries’ AI strategies, will introduce this unique conference, in which the AI start-up communities will have the opportunity to interact with government, academics and industry and for each to learn from the other. Both the French and UK governments have shown a commitment to harnessing the positive effects of AI as one of the fastest-growing tech sectors.
The UK Industrial Strategy, presented in November by Business Secretary Greg Clark, puts great emphasis on AI, and one month after Dame Wendy Hall and Jérôme Pesenti published the independent report “Growing the artificial intelligence industry in the UK”. Critically, the UK government took up this report’s recommendation that The Alan Turing Institute becomes the national research centre for AI, adding to the data science mission it was created with.
Across the Channel, the French Prime Minister asked Cédric Villani in September 2017 to head a special AI taskforce to establish a French national strategy on AI. This taskforce’s conclusions will be revealed in early 2018. Other leaders in AI will discuss the two start-up ecosystems, funding environments and academic sectors. The first panel will present both research landscapes and ways to improve academic cooperation. The second session will present the two AI markets and investment trends, exploring ways to foster new partnerships between the UK and France. All sessions will be livestreamed on the Turing’s YouTube channel This is a vital moment to bring together leading scientists, entrepreneurs and institutional actors from France and the UK to compare best practice and identify ways to work together to produce an environment in which AI can flourish.