Iliad Group opens AI-dedicated hub Kyuta

Source: Iliad

France’s telecommunications company, Iliad Group, has opened a non-profit laboratory dedicated to open research in artificial intelligence (AI).

The AI open-science lab, Kyuta was launched on Friday November 17 at Station F, Paris. It is designed to tackle the main challenges of modern AI, by developing large multimodal models, using text but also sound and images, as well as by inventing new algorithms to enhance their capacities, reliability and efficiency.

Kyutai will leverage computing power from iliad Group subsidiary company, Scaleway.. According to iliad, Scaleway’s supercomputer has the highest-performance computing power for AI applications deployed to date in Europe.

Iliad Group, the CMA CGM Group and Schmidt Futures jointly founded Kyutai. The iliad Group and the CMA CGM Group each contributed €100 million to fund the research laboratory, with funding of nearly €300 million from Schmidt Futures. The research lab plans to bring other private investors on board.

The company said it aims to share its advances with the entire AI ecosystem including the scientific community, developers, companies and society at large.

Xavier Niel, chairman and founder of the iliad Group said: “Europe’s got everything it takes to win the AI race. French researchers are known as being the best in the world. We have all the computing power that’s needed. And we have a hyper-dynamic AI ecosystem. By creating an AI open research lab here in Paris, we’re stepping up the pace even further. Kyutai will give us ultra high-performing, reliable AI models, which the entire European AI ecosystem will be able to benefit from.”

Rodolphe Saadé, president and CEO of the CMA CGM Group said: Through this new investment in artificial intelligence, I would like the younger generation to benefit from all the opportunities that this technology has to offer. Thanks to Kyutai, researchers will have all the resources they need to create and invent the world of tomorrow. It’s a venture that will bring together the world’s best experts to address the challenges of AI. The CMA CGM Group’s decision to get involved was also driven by a desire to place France and the rest of Europe at the forefront of artificial intelligence research. We need to create a dynamic and innovative  ecosystem to keep our businesses competitive.”

Patrick Perez, CEO of Kyutai, added: “We’re embarking on an extraordinary adventure with the launch of Kyutai! It’s an adventure of cutting-edge artificial intelligence with open research available to everyone. To achieve our ambitions, we’re building an exceptional research team and are immersing ourselves in the major challenges of modern AI. We’re looking forward to sharing with the community the first results of our open research.”