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AI Priority Research Program and Equipment (PEPR)


Added by:   National contact point
Added on:   02 Oct 2025
Updated by:   OECD analyst
Updated on:   25 Dec 2025

Within France’s 2030 strategy, this programme accelerates innovation in key fields, including AI in healthcare. By supporting foundational AI research, it drives advancements in medical imaging, predictive analytics, and therapeutic development. The programme also fosters digital health innovation through AI-powered personalised medicine and diagnostics, while encouraging collaboration between research institutions, healthcare providers, and industry.

Name in original language

Programme d’Excellence pour la Recherche (PEPR)

Initiative overview

This program is a powerful tool supporting the national AI strategy, already encompassing nine ambitious projects. It aims to tackle key and fundamental challenges in machine learning across three complementary pillars:
 

Trustworthy and Distributed AI
Through a multifaceted approach to trust, this axis integrates:

  • The development of robustness foundations using statistical approaches.
  • The incorporation of formal methods for the specification, learning, and safety validation of AI models
  • The development of decentralized learning mechanisms that ensure security.
  • The integration of causal models with machine learning to provide explainable, evidence-based capabilities.

Frugal and Embedded AI
This involves deepening the theoretical and algorithmic foundations of machine learning to ensure data and computation frugality by design. It includes:

  • Advanced model optimization and training guided by hardware constraints.
  • The design of dedicated AI hardware architectures that are modular, flexible, and adaptive.

The exploration of physics-informed computational models.
New Mathematical Foundations of AI, particularly in the field of mathematical analysis, this pillar includes:

  • The integration of tools and advances from partial differential equations, optimal control, and optimal transport.
  • To develop novel architectures with stable optimization schemes, efficient solvers and approximations.
  • The analytical treatment of generative and diffusion methods.

Name of responsible organisation (in English)

French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), and National Institute for Research in Digital Science and Technology (INRIA)

About the policy initiative


Organisation:

  • French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), and National Institute for Research in Digital Science and Technology (INRIA)

Category:

  • AI policy initiatives, programmes and projects

Initiative type:

  • AI Research Centres/Centres of Excellence/Expertise, specialised AI teams, labs

Status:

  • Active

Start Year:

  • 2021

Binding:

  • Non-binding

Other relevant urls: