How can universities compete with tech giants for AI talent?

Nations such as China, Finland, France, the UK and India, plus the European Union, have all released artificial intelligence strategies of sorts over the past year, hoping to ready their economies and societies for a wave of upheaval and opportunity afforded by increasingly smart machines. Researchers and universities are seen as key: announcing France's strategy in March, president Emmanuel Macron earmarked €400 million (£349 million) for AI research. The strategies include a wealth of suggestions – and dilemmas – as policymakers grapple with how best to support research into AI, link it with other disciplines and feed the results through into the economy. Perhaps the most pressing problem for AI research, particularly in Europe, is that universities cannot match the lucrative salaries on offer at tech giants in Silicon Valley. The French approach, set out in a report called For a Meaningful Artificial Intelligence, suggests doubling the salaries of AI graduates who work in public research institutions, otherwise the flow into universities could "dry up completely". Marc Schoenauer, a former president of the French Association for Artificial Intelligence and part of the team that drew up the report, admitted that this was unrealistic.