San Francisco, May 23, 2024 – San Francisco proudly calls itself the AI Capital of the World. It offers the most AI jobs offered of any city in the US and continues to see tremendous growth with AI companies continuing to expand and sign new leases. In 2024, roughly 22% of AI job postings in the US are from San Francisco-based companies. This is more than the second (Cupertino) and third (LA) highest-ranked cities combined. Major AI Companies are Growing in San Francisco. OpenAI signed a lease for 486,600 square feet in Mission Bay, the largest office lease signing in San Francisco in 5 years, and their competitor Anthropic recently signed a 250,000-square-foot lease. [source]

Switzerland, ranked the most innovative country in the world for 13 consecutive years, is no idle bystander when it comes to AI. It is home to world-renowned universities and research institutes in the area of AI, including ETH Zurich, EPF Lausanne, the University of St. Gallen, and the IDSIA in Lugano. This proximity to cutting-edge research is one important reason why renowned tech giants such as Google, IBM, or Microsoft run their AI research from here. [source]

Located at the heart of Innovation, and with strong ties to both Swiss and US based leaders in AI, Swissnex in San Francisco, will spend the second half of 2024 focusing on AI related developments in various fields, such as Startups, Academia, The Arts and more.

On May 23, we kicked off our series of AI related events and programs. Swissnex in San Francisco CEO, Emilia Pasquier, had the honor of moderating the event “AI from the Lab to the Market.” The discussion focused on the rapid adoption of generative AI, exploring both the risks and opportunities of this acceleration, as well as potential future scenarios.

Our expert speakers brought a wealth of knowledge to the stage:

Erwan Menard from Google Cloud shared cutting-edge strategies and insights: “We’re in the hype phase for sure. It’s hard to name an industry that is not currently looking at AI. I think the pace of innovation is great. We’re experimenting and playing, but we’re not creating real impact yet.”

Henriette Cramer, co-founder of PaperMoon AI, reminded us that: “People still have power over AI. They don’t have to wait around for laws to pass if they’re worried about it. They can always take action. Take the writer’s strike in LA, for example.” She also noted, “When we talk about AI, we spend a lot of time on the tech side and relatively little time on the impact it can have on society.”

Ronald Mallet from Meta’s Reality Labs mentioned, “People have always been pessimists and resisted innovation like mirrors, electricity, and even teddy bears. It’s normal human behavior. But when you work so closely with AI in the lab, you realize how non-intelligent AI is today.”

This event on the topic of Artificial Intelligence marked the first of a series of events focused on AI, coming later in 2024. Please consult our events overview page for upcoming events focusing on AI. The page is updated regularly. Thank you to all our speakers for sharing their invaluable perspectives and to Philip Wyers for capturing the moments. And thank you Sophie Rougerie and French Tech San Francisco for making this event possible.