In a press release published last week, France Digitale, the French Association for Standardization (AFNOR) and the French General Secretariat for Investment (SGPI) announced a new partnership allowing startups and technology SMEs to participate in the debates concerning the regulation and standardization of artificial intelligence in Europe.

The European Commission has set itself the goal of adopting trust-based AI regulation. During the presentation of the future regulation, on October 18, Margrethe Vestager, vice-president of the Commission assured:

“With these landmark rules, the EU is taking the lead in setting new global standards that will ensure that AI is trustworthy… When it comes to artificial intelligence, trust is not a luxury, but an absolute necessity.”

Developing trusted AI is fundamental. That’s why the French government has indicated it is committing €1.2 million, under the Future Investment Programme (PIA) and the France Recovery Plan, to facilitate the creation of globally accepted, consensus-based standards. AFNOR, which includes many representative actors of the AI ecosystem, is in charge of leading this mission with the aim of creating synergies in France, with other countries within the framework of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) as well as other international consortia.

For their part, many standardization bodies are working to define these new technical standards for AI. Thus, France Digitale and the SGPI have joined forces with AFNOR to help small technology companies decipher these new regulatory and normative requirements for artificial intelligence.

Founded in 2012, France Digitale is the largest start-up community in Europe and has over 1800 digital start-ups and investors in France. The association’s mission is to create European digital leaders by helping young companies grow, enabling them to create jobs and have a positive social and environmental impact.

The General Secretariat for Investment (SGPI) is responsible, under the authority of the Prime Minister, for the implementation of the PIA, it also ensures the socio-economic evaluation of major public investment projects. This partnership was created within the framework of the Grand Challenge “Securing, certifying and making reliable systems based on artificial intelligence” of the AIP. The aim of this partnership is to produce and publish work that will make it possible to specify the needs and expectations of the start-up and SME ecosystem in the field of standardisation and regulation in Artificial Intelligence.

Julien Chiaroni, Director of the Grand Challenge “Secure, certify and make reliable systems based on artificial intelligence”, states:

“We consider it fundamental to strengthen the maturity of the startup ecosystem on the issues of regulation and standardization in AI.”

This partnership with AFNOR will allow France Digitale to integrate, for the first time, standardization bodies (the Standardization Commission on AI in France, then at the European level the CEN-CENELEC and internationally the ISO), where until now there were very few startups.

Franck Lebeugle, Director of AFNOR’s standardization activities states:

“We are delighted with this partnership, which allows us to continue to include technology nuggets in strategic discussions on AI standardization. It is important that the standards that will define tomorrow’s artificial intelligence reflect the values and technological environment of French startups.”

The three organizations hope to raise awareness among startups about standardization issues and offer them content that makes it easier to comply with the new rules.

Maya Noël, Managing Director of France Digitale, assures:

“We anticipate the fact that some projects integrating artificial intelligence will have additional costs due to the new rules and standards. This partnership allows us to start preparing the companies concerned as well as possible. We should not underestimate the burden that this will represent for the smallest players.

As a reminder, the mapping revealed by France Digitale in November 2021 indicates that AI startups are booming in France. There were 502 AI startups in France in 2021 (+11% vs 2020). They are young – 73% of them were created less than 6 years ago. They are attracting more and more investors and have already raised twice as much funding as last year (€1.6bn in 2021 vs €708m in 2020). They create jobs: 13,459 people will be working in AI startups in 2021 (for 70,000 indirect jobs generated), that’s more than 35% increase compared to 2020 (10,008 employees). They will massively recruit in 2022 with 9,312 new jobs expected.

Translated from Les PME technologiques et les start-ups bientôt actrices de la réglementation et de la normalisation de l’IA ?