The acceleration of the development of Artificial Intelligence is a global challenge. The United States and China are the leaders, but France does not intend to lag behind. At the national level, the France AI strategy was presented on March 21, 2017. In March 2018, Emmanuel Macron had announced a €1.5 billion plan to develop the artificial intelligence ecosystem and attract new researchers, then €2 billion for the second phase of the national strategy was released last November. At the regional level, initiatives have been launched, particularly in the Ile de France region where the “AI Pack” has been set up to meet the needs of SMEs and ETIs in the region.

Many companies are aware of the economic stakes of the contributions of AI within their company. While the largest of them have taken the plunge, SMEs and SMIs (companies with 250 to 4,999 employees and sales of less than 1.5 billion euros) are reluctant to do so. They allege lack of time, budget, skills, transparency as well as the impediments of the GDPR. In early 2020, a survey of developers and IT managers conducted by Reveal showed a 41% increase in demand for business intelligence technologies in 2019. While the pandemic has increased the acceleration of AI in many sectors, SMEs and SMBs have had to postpone their AI integration projects due to lack of resources. Moreover, it is clear that a large part of the national market is left to foreign companies.

The AI package at the service of the Ile-de-France economy

Various aids for the digitalization of companies exist at the national level, initiatives at the regional level also promote the digital transition of companies. Thus, on October 15, 2018, the Ile-de-France region presented its regional plan on Artificial Intelligence “IA 2021”, effectively launched in October 2019, of which Pack IA was the first measure to respond to the difficulties of funding the development of AI in VSEs and ETIs. This 3-month personalized support program helps develop Artificial Intelligence solutions (from idea to production), is co-piloted by the Hub France IA, via Datategy in particular, and subsidized up to 50% by the Region.

Datategy supports Heex Technologies, a specialist in autonomous driving

Datategy, a partner of Hub France IA, is making its expertise in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence available to companies in the Ile-de-France region as part of the IA Pack. Founded in 2016 by Mehdi CHOUITEN and Eric CHAU, Datategy uses data to improve strategic decision-making. Its papAI studio, an enterprise AI platform, makes artificial intelligence accessible, accountable, and interpretable to all companies.
Datategy regularly works with large corporations such as SNCF, as well as small and medium-sized businesses and start-ups. It is currently working with Heex Technologies, a startup that is developing a software solution for autonomous vehicles.

Heex Technologies, created in 2019 in Paris, has indeed developed a process based on “smart data”. This solution allows to retrieve only the really useful data in an automated way and for the developers of autonomous driving software, by transiting through the cloud. Major groups have adopted it, such as Nvidia (through its Inception artificial intelligence acceleration program), Microsoft (as part of its Autonomous Driving program) and Google through its start-up program. Mathematician and world-renowned researcher in the field of autonomous vehicles, Arnaud de La Fortelle, in charge of overseeing the technological development, said:

“I have been in the fascinating field of autonomous driving for two decades. There have been fantastic advances, made possible by the exponential growth of real-world data coupled with advances in simulation and deep learning. Now, learning everything is not possible, nor is it useful, and that strategy is broken. So the question is: What do we need and want to learn? What data is relevant to that? And the answer is clearly Smart Data: data that is relevant, interoperable, lightweight, real-time, easy to process and collaborative.”

Datategy and Heex Technologies aim to accelerate and improve the artificial intelligence learning process through the analysis, evaluation and
extracting relevant data from roadside and simulation tests, a true innovation.

More focused AI learning can be applied to many businesses that could improve operational efficiency and increase productivity through reduced costs, improved operational reliability, and reduced processing time.

Translated from Ile de France : Heex Technologies, épaulé par Datategy, co-financé par le Pack IA dans le cadre du plan France IA 2021