Google, Facebook target Paris as a center for AI expansion

Paris is gaining ground as a European hub for artificial intelligence research as Alphabet Inc's Google and Facebook Inc pledge to hire staff and invest in labs, after their top executives met with French President Emmanuel Macron. Google said it will create an AI lab dedicated to fundamental research on themes like automatic learning, language and a computer's ability to see, with the aim of applying findings to fields from health to the environment. The end-goal is to grow this group to a size similar to Google's existing team of 120 engineers who do applied research in Paris, working on developments for Chrome and YouTube, a company spokeswoman said. Facebook, which already has an artificial intelligence lab in Paris, said it will double the team there to 100 people by 2022 and spend 10 million euros ($12.2 million) on items including hardware equipment. Both announcements came as part of a broader series of promises by these companies to increase budgets in France, with Google and Facebook also separately vowing to train citizens on digital tools.