Building digital government together: reflections from our second UK–France exchange
Strategy and Communications
15 May 2026
Last year, i.AI travelled to Paris to meet the IA dans l’État department – France’s AI department within DINUM, whose ALLiaNCE programme incubates and supports public sector AI tools – to trade insights and lessons. In April 2026, we returned the favour, as the French team joined i.AI and the Government Digital Service (GDS) Digital Backbone team in London for two days of open conversation.
We were both asking the same fundamental questions: how do you scale digital infrastructure across a fragmented public sector, and how do you build performant AI for distributed government users while staying on top of safety? This blog reflects on what we discussed, what we learned, and what we're doing next.
Why this kind of exchange matters
The problems we are solving aren't unique to one country - every government is wrestling with how to embed AI responsibly, move fast without breaking trust, and support departments to share infrastructure and tools. Sitting across the table from a team with the same mission, yields insights that no conference panel or published report can replicate.
Explore our key takeaways
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“What struck me most was how much we are grappling with many of the same problems, just from different angles. Hearing from technical leaders from across the channel on what they’re shipping and how, is exactly the kind of ambitious and honest exchange we need more of.” Kalbir Sohi, UK Government’s Chief AI Officer
"Two days in London with the GDS AI team confirmed what we suspected: when two governments compare notes honestly, on what works, what doesn't, and where we're still figuring things out, everyone moves faster. For AI in government, just as for digital transformation before it: the strategy is delivery.” Ishan Bhojwani, Chief AI Officer, DINUM
“The UK and France are tackling the same fundamental challenge: how do you build shared digital infrastructure across a fragmented public sector at scale? France's ProConnect is proof that shared authentication across government can work. We came away from the two days inspired, with practical lessons learned and a partnership we intend to build on." Sonia Patel, UK Government’s Chief Technology Officer
What France brought to the table
LaSuite is France's sovereign alternative to enterprise commercial productivity tools. It’s a full stack of government-owned tools covering secure messaging (Tchap, built on the Matrix protocol), video conferencing (Visio), collaborative documents (Docs), spreadsheets (Grist - an open-source spreadsheet tool to which the French State is the largest contributor alongside its original developer), file storage (Fichiers), and email (Messagerie). Several of LaSuite's tools have been built in collaboration with the Dutch and German governments, reinforcing the European dimension of this work. With over 1.1 million users across the ecosystem, and Tchap alone serving 400,000 monthly active users, this is a hugely impressive feat for a core team of 15–25 people. Notably, a Prime Minister's circular in 2025 made Tchap mandatory for all civil-servant work communications - a significant milestone in driving adoption.
The Albert API provides open-source large language models to French government entities behind a scalable API, serving several open-weight models including Llama and Mistral, with a deliberate focus on stability and security.
Building on top of the Albert API, the IA dans l’État team has deployed a range of AI products, including: Assistant - an AI chatbot for civil servants; Dépenses Éclairées - a data analysis tool; Assistant Transcripts – a mobile transcription tool; and ProConnect – the interministerial single sign-on for civil servants.
What we learned
On diverging approaches: Despite our teams having similar missions, the contrast between our different technical and sovereign approaches prompted useful reflection on the trade-offs each path involves.
- Technical: The IA dans l’État team’s focus is horizontal scale and end-to-end sovereignty whereas i.AI is currently more vertical: using a combination of frontier API models and fine-tuned open-source models, like SAM in Extract, to achieve rapid transformation in specific public sector domains.
- Sovereignty: For France, sovereignty is a formal strategic commitment to reduce dependency on non-European AI providers, invest in French and European companies, and build state-controlled infrastructure wherever possible. In the UK, the recent industrial strategy targets building sovereign capability in critical technologies, alongside being globally engaged and partnership-driven.
Providing inspiration: One of the inspirations behind the Digital Backbone Team’s single sign on work is France's ProConnect, which has demonstrated that this kind of shared authentication can work at scale across an entire government. Being able to ask directly how they got there - the technical decisions, the adoption challenges, what they'd do differently - meant we could learn from their experience and was exactly the kind of exchange that shapes how we work next.
On scaling: Across both teams, scalability is an important priority. The French team have navigated this with considerable sophistication – shifting from pushing tools onto ministries to a point where ministries now come to them. But scale brings structural tensions around trust and adoption. Their solution is to hire bespoke skills directly into departments, embedding AI capability there and making them the ‘owner’ while keeping the central team in a supporting role.
To be continued…
We are planning to further formalise our relationship with ALLiaNCE, setting out a commitment to annual meetings and structured knowledge exchange – particularly across similar products such as Consult, and architectural approaches to document intelligence.
We look forward to seeing the team in Paris next year!