VivaTech in Paris is ten years old. In 2016, 45,000 attended the first event. This year, at least 180,000 delegates will make the trip to the French capital. One highlight will be a “tech takeover” of the Champs-Élysées, where robots will walk amongst the plane trees. In a world where America and China dominate the technology debate, this is Europe’s moment.
The conversations will be familiar in Hall 7 at the Porte de Versailles, where delegates will gather in June. The productivity and revenue impact of artificial intelligence (where results are mixed), sovereignty and ethics (disputed), sustainability (AI is an energy-suck) and cyber-security and defense (vital and not always understood).
There will also be a familiar face cajoling and encouraging, in the background as well as on the main public stages. Maurice Lévy, who led Publicis for thirty years and is credited with building the group into a global giant, is the man who put France on the technology map. That it happened at all is a surprise, given the country’s testy relationship with the freewheeling chaos of Silicon Valley and “move fast and break things” attitudes. There was once talk of a civilizing “French internet” to keep the barbarians at arm’s length.
