France to host 30,000 Indian students by 2030, says Macron; launches AI health hub at AIIMS

New Delhi: French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday coupled an ambitious education push with a new healthcare partnership, announcing plans to nearly triple the number of Indian students in France while inaugurating a 5,000 sq ft Indo-French Centre for AI in Health at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS). Speaking at the AI in Action Summit, Macron said France aims to raise annual Indian student enrolment from around 10,000 to 30,000 by 2030. He said visa processes would be streamlined and aligned with the full duration of academic programmes to prevent repeated renewals. He also stressed that many advanced courses, including in artificial intelligence, are available in English and that France's comparatively low tuition fees reflect strong public funding rather than lower standards. The announcement coincided with the formal launch of the new AI health centre on the AIIMS campus, in the presence of Union health minister Jagat Prakash Nadda. The facility is designed to deepen collaboration in AI-driven medical research, particularly in brain health, neuroscience and clinical decision support. The centre has been established under a memorandum of understanding between AIIMS, Sorbonne University and the Paris Brain Institute, with academic support from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi and other French institutions. It will promote interdisciplinary research at the intersection of medicine, engineering and data science, and support joint doctoral programmes and researcher exchanges. The initiative builds on two years of joint work on neuroimaging in neurodegenerative disorders. Supported by intramural funding and a CEFIPRA grant — a bilateral Indo-French research programme — the collaboration included AI workshops, academic exchanges and neuromodulation training, eventually leading to the proposal for an incubation centre at AIIMS that has now taken institutional form. On the broader implications of artificial intelligence, Macron said its development rests on three pillars: computing capacity, talent and capital. He noted that computing power depends heavily on access to affordable, low-carbon energy and cautioned that the rapid expansion of data centres must remain sustainable. Calling for "AI at the service of humanity", he outlined three priorities: protecting children from unregulated digital ecosystems, ensuring transparency in algorithms that shape public discourse and preserving linguistic diversity in AI systems. Indian researchers echoed the call for responsible innovation. IIT Delhi professor Manan Suri said systems must become far more energy-efficient as AI adoption increases. Aerospace scientist Priyanka Das Rajkakati emphasised the need for interdisciplinary collaboration and making complex technologies accessible to society. The inauguration coincided with the Rencontres Universitaires et Scientifiques de Haut Niveau (RUSH), a high-level Indo-French academic meeting at AIIMS that brought together more than 100 institutions from both countries. Officials said the partnership is shifting from isolated projects to structured, long-term collaboration across healthcare, higher education and digital technologies. With student mobility and AI-driven health research now central to bilateral ties, officials said the next phase of India–France cooperation will rely as much on trained talent and academic exchange as on technological breakthroughs.