Inaugurated in July 2021 in Marseille, the Riality Lab is a place dedicated to AI technologies aimed at raising awareness and supporting the region’s economic players in their adoption of AI. IBM and the Riality Lab signed a first partnership agreement in 2021 and renewed it last October.
According to a 2022 O’Reilly study, the number of organizations reporting AI applications in production, generating revenue in production, has remained constant over the past two years at 26 percent.
Based on the realization that, despite being aware of the potential of AI for their business, decision makers were still struggling to take the plunge, especially when it came to SMBs, the Riality Lab was born.
The Aix-Marseille-Provence Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCIAMP) joined forces with Aix-Marseille University, Microsoft and Sopra Steria, with the support of the Bouches-du-Rhône Prefecture, Simplon, the Aix-Marseille Région Sud French Tech Association, the Aix-Marseille City of Innovation and Knowledge, Kedge Business School, Enedis and IBM, to create this experimentation laboratory dedicated to AI, to which it has dedicated 250 m2 of space at its headquarters in the Palais de la Bourse in Marseille.
Six sectors are particularly targeted: maritime, health, creative industries, energy and the environment, aeronautics and tourism. Companies in these sectors will be able to meet with solution providers such as Microsoft, Sopra Steria and IBM, who are partners in the project, and discover concrete achievements, such as demonstrators and prototypes from laboratories.
The partnership with IBM
IBM is a world leader in hybrid cloud and AI, but it is also a key player in the region’s economy, having opened its first office in Marseilles in 1928.
During the first year of the partnership, it collaborated with the Riality Lab on several projects, including the IA Days program. On October 24, Valérie Segretain, President of Riality Lab, and Jean-Philippe Desbiolles, VP of IBM France, signed an agreement to renew the partnership. The two partners will continue to promote AI in the southern region, and will allow companies, academic actors and associations to meet around current digital issues.
In addition to the implementation of joint events, IBM will exhibit demonstrators and prototypes in the Lab to highlight them, but also to allow visitors to better understand the various areas of application of AI.
AI according to IBM and Jean-Philippe DESBIOLLES
Prior to the signing of the agreement, Jean-Philippe Desbiolles presented a conference and moderated a round table.
Author of ” L’AI sera ce que tu en feras”, J-P Desbiolles is the vice-president of IBM Watson, the IBM division dedicated to AI. The presence of the ” French Doctor Watson”, as he was nicknamed by Forbes magazine, shows that IBM takes this partnership to heart.
The conference “Perspective, Challenges and Issues of Artificial Intelligence” presented his point of view on the future of AI and the problems that companies will have to solve: ” What is AI? What is not AI? How does it relate to ethics and trust? How do we deal with the talent shortage?”
The roundtable brought together J-P. Desbiolles, SATT Sud-Est and the startup Deep Scouting, allowing IBM to engage in dialogue with local players.
The SATT (Société d’Accélération du Transfert des Technologies) Sud-Est is a company that is well established in the Marseille area. Its objective is to develop knowledge on innovation and research topics and to connect researchers and companies. With several hundred research teams and shareholders such as the University of Aix-Marseille, the CNRS and the Caisse des Dépôts, the SATT is a major player in the digital transformation of the region.
Deep Scouting is a Marseille-based start-up unveiled by the Aix-Marseille French Tech, winner of the 2021 edition of the French TechTremplin program. Its AI solutions aim to optimize player recruitment for professional soccer clubs.
Translated from Sensibilisation et accompagnement à l’IA : retour sur le partenariat IBM- Riality Lab
