Kyutai, a non-profit laboratory founded jointly by the iliad Group, the CMA CGM Group, and Schmidt Futures, is dedicated to open research in artificial intelligence (AI). The objective of Kyutai is to tackle the main challenges of modern AI by developing large multimodal models and inventing new algorithms to enhance their capacities, reliability, and efficiency.

The iliad Group and the CMA CGM Group have each contributed $110 million to fund the research laboratory, while Schmidt Futures has also joined as a co-founder. The partnership is based on a shared commitment to this project.

Kyutai has already brought on board a team of researchers with academic and business backgrounds. Rodolphe Saadé, President and CEO of the CMA CGM Group, stated that “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.” Xavier Niel, Chairman and Founder of the iliad Group commented that “Europe’s got everything it takes to win the AI race” as French researchers are known as being the best in the world. He added that “We have all the computing power that’s needed and a hyper-dynamic AI ecosystem.” Patrick Pérez, CEO of Kyutai added that “To achieve our ambitions we’re building an exceptional research team and are immersing ourselves in major challenges of modern AI. We look forward to sharing with our community our first results of our open research.”