French reindustrialization: electrification, AI and digitalization as levers of industrial competitiveness — Keynote by Aymeric Renaud, President of Schneider Electric France at Tech For Industry Show 2026 (Paris Expo Porte de Versailles).
While industry has fallen from 20% to 10% of French GDP, manufacturers keep investing in France. Why? In this keynote, the speaker shows how the convergence of four major transformations — electrification and decarbonization, automation and digitalization, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity — connected by structured, contextualized data, builds a competitive and resilient industrial base in France.
Key topics: industrial microgrids and power-to-process (10–30% energy savings), software-defined automation, generative AI on the shop floor, turning the NIS2 directive into a performance lever (+6% productivity at cement manufacturer Vicat), predictive maintenance with ROI under 6 months, and a concrete scaling methodology: 110 factories equipped with IoT in 3 years.
A must-watch conference on smart manufacturing, Industry 4.0 and the reindustrialization of France.
