Bpifrance

Kog Optimizes GPUs to Speed LLM Inference

French startup Kog is developing low-level software optimizations to accelerate AI inference on standard datacenter GPUs (e.g., AMD MI300X, Nvidia H200). Founder and CEO Gaël Delalleau says an early tech preview demonstrated 3,000 per-request tokens-per-second using a small, purpose-built 2B-parameter model (Laneformer 2B), which has since been open-sourced. Kog has gathered customer interest, design partners, and support from Scaleway, Bpifrance and the French Tech 2030 program, and says Varsity VC co-led its seed round. The company (11 people) aims to apply its approach to larger LLMs and expects to implement a first major model at 10x speed before pursuing a Series A.

Abu Dhabi’s MGX closes $49B AI fund

Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund MGX has closed a $49 billion fund to invest in AI companies, making it one of the largest dedicated AI investment vehicles ever. The fund closed above an initial $45 billion target and was raised from institutional and private investors across the Gulf, North America, Asia and Europe. MGX has already backed 14 companies and has been a significant investor in major AI firms — co-leading Anthropic’s $30 billion raise and participating in its $65 billion Series H, co-leading OpenAI’s $122 billion raise, and taking part in xAI’s $20 billion round prior to that firm’s merger with SpaceX. MGX said it will invest across the AI technology stack including semiconductors, infrastructure and enabling platforms, and is expanding AI infrastructure projects such as an AI campus in France in partnership with Bpifrance and Mistral.

Sam Altman Invited by Macron to Attend G7

OpenAI confirmed to CNBC that its chief Sam Altman will attend the France‑hosted 2026 G7 Leaders Summit (June 15–17) after an invitation from President Emmanuel Macron. OpenAI's Chris Lehane said Altman is expected to take part in leaders‑level discussions, with priorities including youth safety and frontier AI risks such as cyber and bio. The article notes Macron's broader push to court tech executives — including SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son, after SoftBank pledged €45 billion for AI infrastructure in France — and references OpenAI’s 2025 “OpenAI for Countries” initiative, which aims to partner with governments on data centers and national deployments of ChatGPT.