For its 10th edition, VivaTech is putting AI and productivity in the spotlight, and AWS is stepping in as founding partner to show what it looks like in real life. AWS has been building in France for more than 15 years, backing the local ecosystem from early VivaTech editions to mentoring startups at Station F. This founding-partner status signals a shift: the big bets—sovereign cloud, AI agents, and massive training programs—are now deeply connected to VivaTech’s community of founders, corporates, and policymakers.
For Stephan Hadinger, CTO of AWS France, the story of the last decade is simple to tell and hard to overstate. “Cloud started 20 years ago. Back then, it was mostly used by startups that found a way to scale and thrive like never before,” he says. “Ten years ago, cloud was still mostly about compute and storage. Today it’s about data and AI, and AI is becoming the new compute, transforming the world like never before.” Many companies tried AI first, then hit a wall when they realized their data was scattered, low-quality or incomplete. For AWS, the partnership with VivaTech is a chance to help organizations connect their AI experiments to cloud and data foundations that can scale with them.
France’s AI paradox and Europe’s opportunity
France is a good illustration of Europe’s uneven AI takeoff. Around 30% of French companies use AI, compared with 42% across Europe, with startups leading while many mid-market firms move more slowly because of compliance and regulatory concerns.
For AWS, this is exactly where cloud, data and AI come together. Customers are moving along three tracks at once: migrating from on-premises to the cloud, modernizing applications, and building data and AI platforms so projects go beyond proofs of concept. Many organizations have discovered that AI without solid enterprise data delivers limited business value, which is why they are now investing heavily in data quality. The opportunity is to turn data into a new asset and embed AI “in every workflow, in every decision,” as Stephan Hadinger puts it.
Sovereign cloud and cutting edge AI: more choice for Europe
AWS firmly believes that Europe's capacity for innovation rests as much on technological excellence as on the ability to preserve strategic autonomy.
This conviction drives its ambition for European digital sovereignty, which is taking shape with one clear goal: to offer more choice to European businesses and organizations that need to balance technological innovation with sovereign control over their data.
In January, AWS launched the AWS European Sovereign Cloud as a new option for customers, including governments, public sector, and regulated enterprises. With a €7.8 billion investment over 15 years, it operates entirely within the EU, with no critical dependency on components or personnel outside the EU. Customers use the same tools, documentation, and interfaces as other AWS regions. This gives them a familiar builder experience, with additional controls and sovereignty features.
This new offer is based on the same security technology called “Nitro”. This technology ensures that AWS operators have no access to customer data. It is the cornerstone for customers regarding extra-territorial and lawful access requests: only customers can decide who can access their data. An independent advisory board reinforces the governance of the AWS European Sovereign Cloud. Its members include General Philippe Lavigne, former Chief of Staff of the French Air Force and NATO Supreme Commander for digital transformation.
For startups and scaleups, this means they can build globally on existing AWS regions while serving their most demanding European clients on a cloud designed around local regulatory and sovereignty requirements.
“It’s Always Day 1”
“At Amazon we say ‘it’s always Day 1,’ meaning we never stop operating like a startup, no matter the scale,” says Hadinger. That culture shows up in how AWS thinks about skills: not as a side project but as infrastructure.
The company has committed to training more than 800,000 people in France, in cloud computing, cybersecurity, and AI by 2030. Across Europe, this translates into:
- Career-switch programs with partners like Salume, offering three-month intensive courses
- AWS Academy, so students can graduate with AWS certifications in hand
- Inclusion initiatives for women in tech, refugees (ReStart) and female founders, including programs like Sista AI
Hadinger’s advice to innovators is clear: “Go all-in on AI agents”—systems that don’t just generate content but act inside applications and workflows. Internally, AWS used this approach to rebuild the control plane for Amazon Bedrock, achieving three times faster development and a 94% cost reduction on that project.
Kiro is the flagship tool putting AI agents into developers’ hands. It lets people describe what they want in natural language and see full applications emerge, even if they don’t write code.
Inside AWS’s AI Playground
At VivaTech 2026, AWS brings a hands-on AI and cloud playground. The main booth sits right at the entrance of Hall 7.2. Visitors can try Fragrance Lab, where AI creates a personalized perfume based on their preferences, so they walk out in under two minutes with something unique, made by AI. Startups will find a dedicated AWS area in the Startup Village and Founders Arena, with exclusive sessions and support that extend AWS’s “Day 1” focus on founders. And for a must-see experience, there’s the NBA Shooting Lab: a full basketball court where AI analyzes every shot in real time, showing what “AI in production” really means.
Together, VivaTech and AWS are inviting visitors to imagine their own next ten years—built on “Day 1” thinking, with AI-powered tools in every decision they make.
