Facebook

Facebook has announced that it plans to invest €10 million (£8.8 million) in its artificial intelligence (AI) centre in Paris, The Financial Times reports.

The AI lab in Paris was opened in 2015, but now Facebook said it's investing money in expanding the centre.

Over five years, Facebook plans to double the number of researchers to 60, and to increase funding of local PhD candidates to 40 candidates.

The Financial Times also reported that Facebook will donate to the French government's Open Data Initiative, which makes data available to the public across France.

Antoine Bordes, the director of Facebook's Paris AI centre, said in a statement to The Financial Times that "we chose France as our home for our first international research lab in artificial intelligence because of its excellence in this field. We believe in France’s potential to be a leader in AI and want to contribute to the resources necessary to accelerate research in France."

NOW WATCH: We talked to Sophia — the first-ever robot citizen that once said it would 'destroy humans'

See Also:

• Here's how Facebook plans to improve Messenger in 2018
• Facebook is finally investigating whether Russia interfered with the Brexit vote
• 'This sucks hard': Smaller YouTubers feel screwed by the new monetisation rules