Artificial Intelligence: Microsoft Takes Its Districts To Station F

The American computer giant announced this morning, via its president in France, Vaé Torossian, his upcoming arrival in the spans of Station F, the large start-up nursery in Paris that will open its doors at the beginning of summer . Microsoft will be in charge of a program on artificial intelligence.

"Our ambition is to democratize artificial intelligence. The idea is to make the AI ​​accessible to as many people as possible. We are confident that the natural interfaces will multiply to interact with computers and, in this sense, Artificial Intelligence is one of our main challenges of the year. " As of the end of last March, Laurence Lafont, Marketing and Operations Manager, Microsoft France, highlighted in our columns the importance of artificial intelligence, which was one of the Group's main challenges. A desire materialized by the announcement this morning of the arrival of Microsoft in the nursery Station F where the US giant will pilot a program on AI. "When we saw the opportunity of a site in Paris of such a size, for us, it was obvious obviously to be present," says the president of Microsoft France, Vaé Torossian, quoted by AFP. And to unfold the roadmap of the IT group in the corridors of the former Halle Freyssinet, future headquarters of the giant incubator.

"Microsoft will continue to support start-ups from a technological and business point of view, as it already does in thirteen incubators in France," he said. And to continue on the "logistics" part. "Start-ups will have access to 900 software and a chief technical officer will be seconded to the site, while 200 events are already planned for the first year," stresses Vaé Torossian. To return specifically to the "IA" program stricto sensu, Microsoft aims to "catalyze a start-up community around artificial intelligence, before eventually reaching A hundred start-ups in this field, "develops the president of Microsoft France. This program will be carried out in partnership with the National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Automation (Inria). But before reaching the "hundred promising youngsters" promised by the leader, Microsoft will start more reasonably, with only five start-ups sorted out. "We're going to start small! "Microsoft will host these start-ups within Station F and will give them real access to everything we can imagine," says Vaé Torossian.

Station F, a Pharaonic nursery

Initially planned last spring, the Pharaonic project Station F will finally open its doors "at the beginning of summer", according to the latest indications. Financed to the tune of € 250 million by Xavier Niel, CEO and founder of Free, the 34,000-square-meter space nestled in the 13th arrondissement in the former Freyssinet railway building will house a Thousands of start-ups, investors from all walks of life, such as Daphni, Ventech or Kima Ventures, Xavier Niel's fund, and emanations from the grandes écoles. Thus, HEC should relocate its own start-up incubator, while Facebook is already a partner of the place. The e-commerce site Vente-privée, led by Jacques-Antoine Granjon, close to Xavier Niel, is also expected to offer its first program for young shoots.

"Station F" has the ambition to make Paris the European capital of Tech and aims essentially to federate an ecosystem still too fragmented. "We try to create an entire ecosystem under the same roof," said the former head of the start-up accelerator of ... Microsoft, Roxanne Varza, bombed director of Station F by Xavier Niel, quoted by Reuters. The campus, which will also be equipped with meeting rooms, a model or prototype laboratory, a 360-seat auditorium and restaurants open to the public 24 hours a day, hopes to reach financial equilibrium Within three years. If France can boast of having signed a record 2016 in terms of raising funds for its start-up companies, with Sigfox as its leading figure and its 150 million euro turnout, it must be Paris was only third place on the podium, behind London and Berlin. And all of the investment tickets hardly exceed 20 million euros.

Demystifying Artificial Intelligence

With all its contextual elements, Microsoft hopes, as mentioned in the preamble, to succeed in democratizing the use of artificial intelligence which still tends to arouse suspicion. "The objective for us here is to have a large number of start-ups who can exploit, use, benefit from our technologies to achieve their goals and, in the field of artificial intelligence, Is finally able to democratize this theme that is scary, that we must demystify ". Hence, what tools to work towards this demystification? "With applications that are going to be really operational, meaningful, that will solve problems that the general public will better understand," continues the leader, without further details.

One thing is certain, Microsoft has invested heavily to "muscle" its AI component. It is no coincidence that the first acquisition of the year 2017 by Microsoft, the Canadian start-up Maluuba, specializing in automatic learning applied to the processing of natural language, obeys this desire to enrich and To further develop the Artificial Intelligence department of the group.