The Quick 1, 2, 3
Three key takeaways from this unprecedented AI collaboration:
- OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google are backing F/ai, a Paris startup accelerator, breaking years of fierce competition
- This marks a strategic shift where rivals recognize they need a stronger innovation pipeline to stay ahead of regulators and maintain growth
- Paris is positioning itself as Europe’s AI capital, with France’s aggressive courting of tech giants finally paying dividends
The Enemy of My Enemy
I’ll be honest, when I first read about OpenAI and Google collaborating on anything, I had to check the date. These aren’t companies known for sharing their toys. For three years, they’ve been locked in what felt like a digital Cold War, complete with talent defections and public safety sparring matches.
But here’s what’s really happening: the AI giants are looking in their rearview mirror and seeing regulators gaining ground. Suddenly, fostering a healthy startup ecosystem doesn’t just make business sense, it makes survival sense. A thriving AI landscape with diverse players makes it harder for governments to point fingers at any single company as a monopolistic threat.
Why Paris, Why Now
France didn’t stumble into this opportunity. Macron has been playing a long game, personally schmoozing with tech CEOs while his government wrote checks for AI infrastructure. The strategy is working. When even creative AI tools are finding European audiences, you know something has shifted.
Paris offers something Silicon Valley can’t: a fresh regulatory environment that’s simultaneously pro-innovation and thoughtfully cautious. European AI regulations are coming, but they’re being written in consultation with the industry, not in opposition to it.
The Real Game Being Played
Let’s cut through the collaboration rhetoric. This accelerator gives these giants premium access to promising startups before they become problems. It’s venture capital disguised as altruism, though that doesn’t make it less valuable for the startups involved.
The computational resources alone make F/ai different from typical accelerators. Most startup programs offer mentorship and maybe some AWS credits. F/ai startups get access to frontier models and the technical teams behind them. That’s not just an advantage; it’s almost unfair to competitors.
What fascinates me most is how this changes the competitive dynamic. These companies are essentially agreeing to share deal flow while maintaining their core rivalry. It’s like watching poker players agree to split the ante while still trying to take each other’s chips.