The CNRS taking up the gauntlet of AI's scientific challenges

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From February 6th to 11th 2025 France will be hosting the AI Action Summit which aims to encourage the development of trusted AI to serve the general interest. Jalal Fadili, is the director of the CNRS's 'AI for Science and Science for AI' Centre. He is also a member of the scientific committee of the AI, Science and Society conference which will take place during the summit. Here he gives us an overview of the summit's ambitions and the CNRS's participation. 

You're taking part in the AI Action Summit at the Élysée Palace in Paris from February 6th to 11th. What kinds of discussions or collaboration initiatives do you hope to see emerge from the exchanges between the scientists, industrialists and decision-makers attending?

Jalal Fadili1 From February 6th onwards, Paris will be attracting worldwide attention by hosting many events (see box) aimed at bolstering international action in favour of an AI that serves the common good. I'll be taking part in the AI, Science and Society conference on February 6th and 7th at the Institut Polytechnique de Paris as a member of the scientific committee and moderator for the session on "The mathematics of machine learning", and also the International Summit scheduled for February 10th at the Grand Palais. The more scientific events mainly target researchers and aim to showcase the transformations AI has brought about in science and society whereas the February 10th Summit will be a forum bringing together major global AI stakeholders, including governments, businesses, scientists or members of civil society, thus promoting the cross-fertilisation of ideas. It will involve conferences, round tables and presentations.

  • 1Jalal Fadili is a professor at the École Nationale Supérieure d Ingénieurs in Caen (ENSICAEN) and carries out his research at the Research Group in Computer Science, Image and Instrumentation of Caen (GREYC-CNRS/ENSICAEN/University of Caen Normandy). He is the director of the AISSAI Centre (AI for Science, Science for AI) which promotes transdisciplinarity around AI. His research focuses on data processing, inverse problems, optimisation and statistical learning, and the applications of these to astronomical imaging.

AI Action Summit

A full week will be dedicated to Artificial Intelligence at the AI Action Summit in Paris which starts with two days at the Institut Polytechnique de Paris. Following this, there will be a weekend of cultural events open to the general public then a one-day event on February 10th at the Grand Palais for a thousand participants from civil society, NGOs and the research sphere. Finally the summit of heads of state and government leaders will take place on Tuesday February 11th.

The CNRS is co-organising the AI, Science and Society conference at the Institut Polytechnique de Parisbringing together the world's best researchers (Berkeley, MIT, Stanford, Google DeepMind, etc.) in the presence of Clara Chappaz, Minister Delegate for Artificial Intelligence and the Digital Economy, and Philippe Baptiste, Minister for Higher Education and Research. Why was it important to organise these days ahead of the summit? 

J. F.: First, I'd like to highlight the collective work carried out by the scientific committee which I'm a member of on behalf of the CNRS and by the local organising team at the Institut Polytechnique de Paris who made it possible to set up such a large-scale event with a prestigious programme in record time. 

AI is undeniably bringing about a lot of transformations in science and in our societies. So it was essential to organise this kind of event to play our role as scientists and provide essential interdisciplinary expertise to prepare for the high-level discussions between world leaders over the following week in Paris. Society needs science and the contribution of scientific knowledge to respond to the major challenges of today and the future. This is the case in all the key decisive areas today and in the future. Of course AI is one of these fields.

Which subjects will be covered during the discussions?

J. F. This interdisciplinary conference will be an opportunity to understand and explore how AI can contribute to other sciences across a broad scientific spectrum. We hope to promote and facilitate dialogue between experts in AI, natural sciences and social sciences so this conference can enhance our in-depth understanding of the current state of the art in AI and help shape a form of AI that is aligned with humanity's values and priorities by catalysing the input from all disciplines. Researchers from world-renowned public and private organisations have been invited to share their ideas, present their cutting-edge research and innovations, and respond to pressing issues at the interface of AI and its applications in diverse fields like biology, health, physics, mathematics, economics, trust, sustainability, and ethics. We can all work together to create an AI that is both innovative and responsible.

You're the director of the 'AI for Science and Science for AI' Centre (AISSAI) which aims to structure and organise transdisciplinary work at the interfaces with AI. What is your view on the CNRS's position on AI? 
J. F.: The CNRS is at the forefront of this discipline, co-steering or taking part in several national programmes including the AI PEPR1  and the Choose France CNRS AI Rising Talents programme2 . The CNRS runs the Jean Zay supercomputer dedicated to AI which is one of the most powerful in Europe. AI methods are now being rapidly rolled out to major research infrastructures and national and international experimental platforms within the CNRS. This all covers a broad research spectrum - from physics to biology, materials, ecology, climate and so forth. The CNRS knew that our intrinsically multidisciplinary dimension meant we could play a leading role in combining AI with all disciplines so the organisation set up the AISSAI Centre in 2021. This centre implements a range of scientific policies and actions aimed at enabling the CNRS to play a leading role in the interdisciplinary scientific challenges of the future which AI will play a major role in. These interdisciplinary exchanges are crucial as the 2024 Nobel Prizes in Physics and Chemistry3  spectacularly illustrated.

The CNRS defined AI as one of its six societal challenges set out in its previous 'Objectives and Performance Contract' (COP) signed with the French State. The 'Generative AI for Science' challenge is also integrated into the CNRS's upcoming 'Objectives, Resources and Performance Contract' (COMP 2024-2028)

J. F.: Yes, AI was already in our strategy as expressed in 2019 as a challenge for science and also for society. As you said, AI is once again present in the CNRS COMP 2024-2028 with the 'Generative AI for science' challenge. A new stage has been reached with generative AI and more generally with foundation models capable of creating multimodal content like text, images, video, 3D models or sequences from a set of examples. This paradigm can help support the process of ideation - the generation of new scientific ideas or hypotheses. Generative AI means researchers can take new approaches and explore novel scenarios and drive and accelerate scientific creativity. The latter could include exploring new materials, structures, components (molecules, drugs, etc.) or models (physics, mathematics, etc.) or creating scenarios in the humanities and social sciences rather than just processing existing data. There are still a lot of challenges when models like these are applied to other disciplines which is why there is a dedicated generative AI session at the AI Action Summit conference to underline the importance of this theme for the future of research.

  • 1 Priority Research Programme or Equipment
  • 2The
  • 3Artificial intelligence (AI) closely links the 2024 Nobel Prizes in physics and chemistry. In physics, John J. Hopfield (US) and the Geoffrey E. Hinton (UK-Canada) were rewarded for their pioneering work on artificial neural networks which has laid the foundations for machine learning. In chemistry, the work of Demis Hassabis (UK), John Jumper (US) and David Baker (US) was rewarded for their use of AI, notably the AlphaFold programme which has revolutionised molecular biology predicting the three-dimensional structure of proteins. Hopfield and Hinton have developed fundamental AI tools while Hassabis, Jumper and Baker have applied these to solve complex problems in chemistry.