Big, Efficient, Open: The AI Future We Saw Coming

Last November, at ai-PULSE, we told you where AI was heading: big, efficient, and open. Fast forward to last week’s AI Action Summit, and we saw it all play out in real time.

Big: Scaling Up for the AI Era

AI needs infrastructure. That’s not news to us at Scaleway, but it’s now a message backed by serious commitments. French President Emmanuel Macron announced a €109 billion investment to reinforce Europe’s AI capabilities.

We’re doing our part. The iliad Group announced a massive €3 billion investment to build out the future of AI infrastructure. Our goal is to make sure Europe has the compute power to compete at the highest level. Because you need to reach a critical size to succeed in AI.

Scaleway was the first European cloud provider to invest in GPU clusters back in 2023. That early move paid off: we still have one of the biggest pools in Europe and some of the best models today were trained on our infrastructure. But being first isn’t always easy. Staying ahead means constant innovation, and we’re working hard to ensure our compute, network, and storage remain fast, reliable, and built for the future.

We’re not stopping here. Our 2025 roadmap is ambitious: we want to make access to large-scale compute easier than ever. AI’s future depends on solid infrastructure, and we’re building it.

Efficient: Doing More with Less

Even before the AI Action Summit, DeepSeek stole the show by proving that AI can be smarter, not just bigger. And at the summit itself, Kyutai showed why efficiency matters. Their Hibiki model is a voice-to-voice AI translation system that can run directly on a smartphone. It is a perfect example of what happens when a team of smart people focuses on efficiency.

Indeed, raw power isn’t everything. If we were in Asimov’s Foundation series, Europe wouldn’t be the Empire flexing its might. We’d be the Foundation, outthinking the competition. In complex systems, smart always beats big.

And let’s be real: Europe isn’t ignoring the climate crisis. Growth needs to be smart. France has one of the cleanest energy mixes in the world, thanks to nuclear power. That means AI models trained on French infrastructure have a lower carbon footprint than most alternatives.

At Scaleway, we don’t just talk about efficiency. We track it. That’s why we launched the first version of our Environmental Footprint Calculator. In 2025, we’ll keep expanding it, giving users clearer insights into the impact of the technology they use. Knowing your footprint matters. It helps you make smarter choices.

Open: AI in an Uncertain World

The AI Action Summit also made one thing clear: we live in unpredictable times. Yesterday’s allies might not be tomorrow’s. That’s why openness matters more than ever.

Open source is our best safeguard against uncertainty. It lets you control your future. And it also keeps innovation accessible to all. Because open source is about giving back. India’s role as co-chair of the summit reminds us that AI shouldn’t just serve a select few. It should benefit everyone, everywhere.

For Scaleway, open source is the best way to keep our clients in control, not locked in. We believe in giving choices and alternatives. That’s why, when we built our Generative APIs, we set ourselves a strict rule: make it compatible with OpenAI’s API. The result? Anyone can switch to the open-weight models we provide by changing a single line of code.

Open source isn’t going anywhere. Thanks to the battle for talent, state-of-the-art open-weight models will keep emerging in 2025. The best contributors don’t want to build behind closed doors. They want to share their work with the world. They want to be on the right side of history, as Sam Altman would say.

At Scaleway, we’re all in. We’ll keep deploying the latest and greatest open-weight models, ensuring that you stay in control.

2025: The AI Playbook Remains the Same

Big. Efficient. Open. If the AI Action Summit confirmed anything, it’s that these three principles will continue to define AI in 2025.

Want to see what’s next? Mark your calendar for November 18th, because ai-PULSE will be back. And we’re just getting started.