A year and a half ago, IBM opened its artificial intelligence laboratory in Saclay (Essonne), to support the government's ambition to be at the forefront of the artificial intelligence market.
“
Our goal is to position France as a leader in the operational intelligence market
»Recalls Nicolas Sekkaki, president of IBM France.
Among the objectives, encourage co-innovation between private companies and French public research.
The first fruit of this establishment in Saclay was born with “AIDA” (Artificial Intelligence for digital automation), which brings together IBM, three other French companies, the University of Paris-Saclay and Bpifrance.
The ambition of the project is to develop an open learning platform that will allow companies to easily integrate more artificial intelligence into their processes in order to improve their productivity and competitiveness.
Concrete use cases
To do this, the project combines the most recent advances by researchers from the University of Paris-Saclay on artificial intelligence algorithms and concrete business issues.
“
We wanted concrete use cases to feed our thinking,
” explains Harley Davis, VP Automation Intelligence and France Lab at IBM.
Thus the company Stet, which manages the retail payment system in France, brings its reflection and its needs in terms of financial fraud detection.
Softeam Group, a subsidiary of Docaposte, is faced with optimization problems in decision support.
Concrete use cases that intersect with major concerns of researchers in terms of transparency and explainability of artificial intelligence algorithms.
"
We are developing a technological platform able to better manage the data at the source of artificial intelligence models, while increasing confidence in artificial intelligence
" insists Harley Davis.
Artificial intelligence must have explicable results, which can be subject to controls and audits.
It must also be able to adapt to rapid changes (objectives, competitive environment, etc.) and to complex contexts, which combine several decision-making processes.
Jobs in high added value
The first technological milestones of the project were laid in 2018, it is now a question of moving up a gear.
One hundred and fifty people work on it in Saclay.
“
It's a bet,”
says Nicolas Sekkaki
.
It was a question of seeing if people coming from two very different worlds, those of research and industry, are able to work together and that goes very well
”.
AIDA has a budget of 33 million euros, a third of which is provided by bpifrance as part of the future investment program (PIA).
In the shorter term, the AIDA project also responds to a major objective of the IA plan in terms of jobs in areas with high added value.
“
When we look at the recovery plan, we say to ourselves that we are on the subject
” underlines Nicolas Sekkaki.
After two co-development projects with ETI Guerbet, a French group of 2,700 people specializing in contrast products for medical imaging, IBM will set up its co-innovation center in December in a new building on the Saclay plateau, which will bring together between 250 and 300 people.
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