Zürcher Nachrichten - Sovereignty fears dog AI enthusiasm at France's Vivatech

Talk of securing access to AI will be on the agenda both in the French capital and at the G7 summit in Evian, where President Donald Trump and the heads of US tech giants are meeting leaders of top industrial economies.

Washington last week pushed its allies' tech dependency to the top of the agenda.

It banned non-American users from the powerful AI models Fable and Mythos, whose creator Anthropic withdrew access for all in response.

In a sign of how seriously the move jarred transatlantic ties, France and Vivatech's guest nation Germany issued a joint statement as the fair opened, offering a "shared vision for strengthening Europe's digital sovereignty".

Aimed at Brussels and fellow EU member states, the declaration announced the creation of the "Franco-German Forum for the Future".

The platform aims to link up the two countries' private and public-sector tech efforts, including tallying up local alternatives to foreign digital services and creating an "evaluation framework for Europe's critical digital dependencies".

Amazon founder Bezos was to talk space on stage Wednesday morning with Dave Limp, the head of the billionaire's Blue Origin rocket company, and former NASA astronaut Mike Massimino.

On Thursday, French President Emmanuel Macron and Indian leader Narendra Modi are expected to walk the Vivatech halls.

- Tech heavyweights -

Also joining the roughly 15,000 start-ups showing off their inventions until Saturday will be French researcher Yann LeCun, who made waves this year with a new company focused on physical AI after leaving Facebook's parent company Meta.

Other top guests include the head of Dutch tech heavyweight ASML, whose ultraviolet lithography machines indispensable to advanced chipmaking have propelled it to the largest market capitalisation in Europe.

Fans of AI automation may be more excited by the Thursday appearance of Peter Steinberger, the Austrian creator of the open-source AI agent OpenClaw that took Silicon Valley by storm earlier this year.

Bringing together founders, investors, industry associations and national delegations, Vivatech is a hive of activity every year.

Organisers have expanded the 2026 event to 70,000 square metres (750,000 square feet) from its usual 50,000 and visitor numbers could top last year's record of 180,000.

- Palantir falling-out -

Further highlighting the tech sovereignty debate, French Finance Minister Roland Lescure was to meet local firm ChapsVision at Vivatech.

The company has been chosen to replace the American data sifting giant Palantir on a major contract for France's DGSI domestic intelligence agency, Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu announced Tuesday.

"We cannot accept new strategic dependencies in the digital realm," Lecornu said.

Palantir has insisted that its contract is still in force, with the French government saying it wanted to avoid any gap in service while ChapsVision is brought aboard -- without saying when the migration would be complete.

Beyond the geopolitical manoeuvering, Vivatech is also the venue for "announcements about partnerships, maybe fundraises, it's a pretty classic" trade show, said EY partner Jean-Christophe Liaubet.

With Germany as the guest of honour this year, more than 200 start-ups from across the Rhine will be in Paris for the fair's 10th anniversary edition.

"In a time of growing technological and global fragmentation, this spotlight underscores Europe's ambition to affirm its sovereignty and take the lead in innovation," organisers said.

This year firms were able to offer demos of their wares for the first time on Paris' Champs-Elysees avenue.

And spectacular robotics displays are scheduled for one of the main stages on Wednesday.

Chinese firms Unitree and AgiBot aim to again wow spectators with their dextrous humanoid robots, while European start-ups including Genesis and PAL Robotics will also be on show.

M.J.Baumann--NZN