Rodolphe Saadé, the chairman of CMA CGM, is investing in new ventures outside of the company’s core container shipping segment following its record-breaking annual profits in French history last year. These investments include building a media division and an air cargo business, as well as a foray into artificial intelligence.
Saadé has joined forces with Eric Schmidt and Xavier Niel to launch Kyutai, an AI open science lab. Kyutai is a non-profit laboratory dedicated to open research in AI, aimed at addressing the major challenges of modern AI. The laboratory will focus on developing large multimodal models and inventing new algorithms to enhance their capacities, reliability, and efficiency. It will use the computing power made available by Scaleway, part of Niel’s tech empire, which offers the highest-performance computing power for AI applications in Europe.
Kyutai has already received nearly EUR300m in investments from various sources. Its goal is to democratize AI and make its advances available to everyone in the AI ecosystem, from scientists to developers, companies, and decision-makers in democracies around the world. Saadé expressed his desire for young people to benefit from the opportunities presented by this venture and said that he wants researchers to have access to the resources they need to create and invent solutions for tomorrow’s world.
The CMA CGM Group’s involvement in AI research is driven by a desire to position France and Europe at the forefront of artificial intelligence research. By creating a dynamic and innovative ecosystem that keeps businesses competitive, Saadé believes that joining forces with other players in this field is essential for preparing for the future of AI.
Overall, Saadé’s vision for Kyutai is one that prioritizes collaboration over competition within the AI community. He believes that through shared knowledge and resources, they can unlock new possibilities for innovation and growth.
In conclusion, Rodolphe Saadé’s investments are not limited to just his core container shipping business but also extend beyond it as he seeks opportunities outside of it through ventures such as Kyutai – an AI open science lab jointly founded with Eric Schmidt and Xavier Niel – which aims to tackle some of modern AI’s biggest challenges by developing large multimodal models and inventing new algorithms that improve efficiency while keeping costs down through high-performance computing provided by Scaleway.