Nvidia invests in Doctolib: there’s obviously AI involved

When Nvidia takes an interest in a company, it’s to talk AI. That’s what’s happening today with Doctolib, the French medical appointment-booking platform, in which Nvidia is going to become a minority shareholder.But the American giant is no stranger to this: it invested at least $8 billion in Europe last year.

Nvidia takes a stake in Doctolib: it will be able to train its AI models

As reported by Agence France-Presse (AFP), Nvidia’s chief executive held a press conference in Paris on Tuesday, October 13. The businessman announced that Nvidia was going to take a stake in Doctolib as a minority shareholder. A decision that will make it possible to “launch the artificial intelligence revolution in Europe,” in Jensen Huang’s own words.

The amount of this investment and the share of Doctolib’s equity taken by Nvidia are unknown. Le Figaro estimates it at “a few million euros” and notes that Nvidia will not sit on the company’s board of directors. For reference, Doctolib was valued at €3.6 billion last April.

Nvidia’s idea is to help Doctolib develop AI agents “that enable healthcare professionals to provide better care,” as it says in its press release. This notably includes medical decisions. On the patient side, Doctolib’s goal is to offer a health-specialized equivalent to ChatGPT. The funds will also be used to recruit “new AI experts,” adds Le Figaro.

Nvidia pulls out the big guns and invests heavily in Europe

At the same time, Nvidia announced that it was investing in three French start-ups specializing in AI. First, there is Entalpic, which works on atomic modeling applied to industrial chemistry and materials science. Then there is Genesis AI, which designs robots equipped with generative AI. Finally, there is Pigment, a Paris-based enterprise software company.

This is by no means the first time the giant has taken an interest in French companies. As it recalls in its press release, it had already invested in: Alice&Bob, which works on quantum computing; Gradium, which specializes in voice AI, as well as Scintil Photonics, which designs photonic integrated circuits. The $8 billion already invested will be topped up with an additional $2 billion, which will be announced in the coming days. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is indeed continuing his European tour and will stop in London and Berlin.

In all these investments, Nvidia has a twofold advantage: the company is an investor, but not only that. It is also the company that makes the AI chips selling for increasingly higher prices. Accepting an investment from Nvidia guarantees these European companies access to computing power. All within a feverish race to develop AI models in the hope of overtaking their competitors.

👉🏻 Follow the latest tech news in real time: add 01net to your sources on Google, and subscribe to our WhatsApp channel.

Source: Frandroid