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Wired

Xavier Niel, a Driving Force of French AI, Is Now Shaping TikTok

Wired
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Xavier Niel is the original French internet mogul, of the generation before founders wore t-shirts to the office.

Niel, a former hacker who never went to college, has always been preoccupied with disruption.

The TikTok owner enlisted Niel as it faces growing legal problems, especially in the US .

Xavier Niel launched Kyutai , a non-profit research lab based in Paris , which launched an AI voice assistant this summer called Moshi .

Niel is keen to make sure France and Europe are not left behind in the AI age.

He has also been thinking about how to develop AI infrastructure in France .

His vision for the cloud provider Scaleway is for big European companies to be able to use a local cloud instead of being customers of a US cloud.