Innovate faster, be more competitive, regain sovereignty: these words recur in every speech. And yet, something is blocking progress. In his closing keynote at Tech For Industry Show 2026 (Paris Expo Porte de Versailles), the speaker asks an uncomfortable question: what if what prevents us from going faster isn't speed itself, but the foundation — what holds everything together?

Walking the stands, everyone marvels at what AI enables — and immediately wonders: "why don't I have that? Why can't we go faster?" Speed was a recurring theme: a panel on reconciling speed and safety, another on sovereignty concluding "we have everything we need, but we must go faster," and even Aymeric Renaud's opening keynote (Schneider Electric France), ending on "it all depends on how fast we choose to act." This talk's thesis: what's missing isn't speed, it's the foundation — and in 2026, that foundation is technological.

Beware the misunderstanding: this isn't about IT or ticket management, but technology in the sense of our ability to adapt, pivot, change — and how fast. As in architecture: you don't build floors before the foundation. A poor foundation guarantees fragility and limits.

Back to 2017: Lloyd Blankfein, then Goldman Sachs CEO, publicly declares "We are a technology firm, we are a platform" — not a bank, a technology company. Piyush Gupta, CEO of DBS Bank (Development Bank of Singapore) until 2025, goes further: "We are more like a technology firm offering financial services than a bank." The nuance is decisive: not "a bank that uses technology," but "a technology company that offers financial services."

Gupta concretely transforms his bank: from a classic front/back-office model to a digital by design, digital driven one. Against the outsourcing trend, he brings everything back in-house and puts technology at the core, with financial services built on top. Facing resistance ("I'm a banker, not a technology expert"), his answer is clear: it was never a technology problem, it's a human problem. He didn't hire masses of engineers: he put his bankers in the same rooms as engineers and product managers, and taught them to think differently.

This observation goes beyond the firm. The Draghi report on European competitiveness makes a simple point: remove the technology sector from the equation, and productivity gains between the US and Europe are roughly similar. The gap widens on the technology sector, and there alone. Europe's problem isn't only a lack of capital or talent, but the place given to technology.

An illustration: on 12 May 2026, Arthur Mensch (Mistral AI co-founder) was heard for 90 minutes by a parliamentary committee on France's digital dependencies — before a nearly empty room. Not to blame lawmakers, but because it's the symptom of what we see in companies: technology is often delegated, sent to someone, rarely handled at the highest level. Not contempt, but a blind spot — we don't yet grasp the scale of the transformation underway. Yet Mensch defends a vision of gigantic industrial infrastructure, "from electrons to tokens": the sovereignty we claim to want is right there.

Contrary to legend, Kodak didn't miss the digital shift — it invented the digital camera in 1975 and led the US market in the mid-2000s. What Kodak missed was the identity shift: staying a "photography company" as photography became a micro-commodity wiped out by the smartphone, it went bankrupt in 2012. Fujifilm, at the same time, questioned its real business and answered "fine chemistry and materials": the collagen from its film went into skincare creams, and healthcare is now its main revenue sector. Two fates, a question of identity — thinking by "who we are," not "what we make."

What is Samsung's business? Smartphones, TVs, appliances — but also one of South Korea's largest shipyards, the builder of the Burj Khalifa, defense, nuclear, insurance. Beyond the story of Korean conglomerates, what gives this agility to pivot and conquer markets fast is a perfectly mastered technology backend, placed at the core of everything. A matter of coherence.

Five years ago, Huawei was sanctioned by the US and shut out of 5G — seemingly a death sentence. Five years later: $126 billion in revenue, a pivot to cloud, AI and automotive (600,000 vehicles via partnerships), and above all 22% of revenue reinvested in R&D and technology. At that price, Huawei survived — bringing its supply chain along, its suppliers transforming with it. Hence a maxim: a supply chain is only as strong as its least digital link.

The speaker's favorite example: TOTO, a Japanese company founded in 1917, a ceramics specialist (the famous Japanese toilets). One day, its stock gained 18% in a session. Why? Because since 1984, discreetly, TOTO has made electrostatic chucks — which hold silicon wafers during semiconductor etching, essential for training large AI models. TOTO is now the world's second-largest producer. The company didn't "see AI coming": it was simply ready, having maintained an activity it could have dropped. A fine lesson in patience and pivoting at the right moment.

The question is asked respectfully: our champions make fantastic planes, cars, turbines. But can we imagine aerospace shifting into quantum, automotive into biopharma, energy into semiconductors as easily as TOTO or Fujifilm? Probably not. Why? Because our champions keep technology in service of their business and product — seen as a tool, not the core on which everything is built.

The objection is familiar: "we've tried, the culture isn't there, it's more sensitive here, more complex, the legacy…". Not untrue. But what do all those who succeeded have in common? A cultural decision made at the highest level and sustained over time. Each made a choice: build the core, the foundation first, to then do much more. The transformation meant to be technical is in fact human — like Gupta's banker, whose legitimate fear dissolves once he's brought in, shown the way and put in the projects.

True for large groups (70% of which think they're digital — a figure worth challenging), it's above all critical for SMEs: how to remain the supplier chosen tomorrow if you're not digital, in a world moving this fast?

The closing conviction: there's no "good governance," "good budget" or "good organization" for technology in the absolute. There's one question, which almost no one asked on arrival: is your company a technology company that does your business, or a business-of-your-trade company that uses technology? It's not wordplay: these are two diametrically opposed visions. All the cited examples answered — early, on solid convictions. Because such change is prepared over time: it's not when you realize you must act that you'll catch up with the one who "poured their concrete" ten years earlier. Those who succeeded weren't those with the best technology or the best tool, but those who understood it should no longer be treated as a support, but as a foundation.

What does "digital is a foundation, not an option" mean? That technology shouldn't be a mere support serving the business, but the base on which the whole company is built — its ability to adapt, pivot and change fast. As in architecture, you don't build solid floors without a foundation.

Why did Kodak really go bankrupt? Not for missing digital (Kodak invented the digital camera in 1975), but for missing an identity shift: staying a "photography company" instead of redefining itself, as photography became a commodity.

Is digital transformation a technological or human problem? First human and cultural, per the keynote: DBS Bank's example shows it's about teaching business roles to think differently (like product managers), more than hiring engineers.

What's the one right question to ask? "Are you a technology company that does your business, or a business-of-your-trade company that uses technology?" — two opposing visions that determine the ability to transform.

This conference was recorded at Tech For Industry Show 2026, the B2B trade show for industrial transformation (Smart Manufacturing, AI, Supply Chain) at Paris Expo Porte de Versailles. Watch the full keynote video above, and join us on May 19–20, 2027, Hall 7, for the next edition.