The National Context

Over time, the French National Cybersecurity strategy has largely focused on two regions: Britany for its applications to defense and Paris Region for its business ecosystem. Since 2018, Paris Region has been playing a central role in the race for a globally trusted and secured Cyberspace.

Get Close to Your Customers

Paris Region has the greatest concentration of headquarters of Fortune 500 companies in Europe whose decision centers host strategic assets (bank, insurance, mobility, health, energy and more). In the current fast paced context of digital transformation, the cybersecurity market is booming. In France, the turnover generated by Cybersecurity and Digital Trust (products and services) reached €14.6 billion in 2021 and it is planned to triple as for 2025.

Several Local Cyber Innovation Clusters

A unique asset of Paris Region is its Campus Cyber France at La Défense. In a space of 25,000 m², the campus brings together more than 1,000 experts in Cybersecurity: private players (such as Orange Cyberdefense, Thalès and Atos among others, and SMEs) as well as academic players such as Inria and public players such as ANSSI. It hosts the French interbank CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team) next to several SOCs and labs.Opened in February 2022, the project comes at a perfect time, ahead of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games which it will help secure. 

The project is inspired by the examples of Israel and Russia, two countries which gathered their cybersecurity players under one roof. Paris Region is the first region in the world to build its dedicated campus at the heart of a global business district. 

This Campus Cyber is strategically located close to the Cybersecurity’s beating heart of Paris Region: Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (SQY). SQY is a member of the European Cybersecurity Organization and is notably part of the “European Cyber Valley” program. SQY counts the following cyber assets: 

• Atos’ global quantum computing R&D laboratory,  
• 6 major Security Operations Centers (SOC) of Airbus, Thales, Atos-Bull, Crédit Agricole, C2S Bouygues Group and Antemeta,  
• Bertin IT’s Cyber Intelligence Center, whose aim is to protect against cyber-attacks, 
• The first French experimentation site for securing urban IoT, 
• The new school Ecole 2600, as well as a digital campus hosting cybersecurity evaluation and training centers. 

To further stimulate this ecosystem, the Deeptech innovation and technology cluster Systematic Paris offers the perfect setting to develop your Cybersecurity projects with strategic partners at reach: 

• 900+ members including 550 SMEs and startups, 140 large corporations, 160 academic labs and universities
• 20 investors and 30 institutional partners  
• 7 DeepTech hubs: Data Science & Artificial Intelligence, Cyber & Security (& Defense) incl. Blockchain, Digital Infrastructure, Advanced Engineering & Computing, Optics & Photonics including Quantum Computing, Open Source, Drones

Top of Cyber Research in Paris Region

• Artificial intelligence

  France excels in deep learning. The 4 most powerful internet companies (Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple) have set up research in Paris and attract many French talents. INRIA is setting up public R&D mixed teams composed of both computer scientists specialized in deep learning and fundamental mathematicians. They are dedicated to defensive and offensive strategies through deep learning. 

• Cryptography

  Since 2014, Paris Region has been home to Ledger, the world leader of crypto asset security. France has historically been a world authority in the field. The #1 university for mathematics worldwide in 2020 and 2021, Université Paris-Saclay, contributes extensively to  maintaining Paris Region’s major position in the field 

• Post-quantum technologies

  (including cryptography): France ranks in the world’s top 3. Within the next ten years or so, Quantum computers should reach an operational level. Post-quantum cryptography is therefore one of the most critical research topics for France. 

Cybersecurity Talents

What all the IT engineering degrees in Paris Region have in common is their high level of excellence. The ecosystem counts: 

• Academic Research labs: CEA, Inria, CNRS, LSE at EPITA, LTCi at Telecom Paris; 
• Joint research labs such as Secure Indentity Alliance between Idemia and Télécom Paris and also EIC Project at IRT SytemX (Environment for Cybersecurity Interoperability and Integration);
• Graduate schools with training in cybersecurity: ISEP, ESIEA, Epita, Epitech, Institut Mines-Télécom, Ecole 2600.

The talents coming out from these centers of excellence can start their own business at Cyber@Station F, a committed accelerator launched by Thales. 

Download our guide to find the right accelerator for your company in Paris Region.

In addition to these research labs and accelerators, talents can also join Europe’s #1 bug bounty and VDP platform YesWeHack based in the city center of Paris. 

They Chose Paris Region

With nearly 85,000 businesses in the ICT industry and the largest ICT workforce in Europe, counting 710,000 employees including 250,000+ in computer programming, consulting businesses will find all the key players across the value chain (IT for business, telecommunications, digital content producers, defense & security, artificial intelligence, optics and electronics), as well as major multinational corporations: Dassault Systèmes, Orange, Motorola, Criteo, Ubisoft, Accenture, Atos, Capgemini, etc. 

Want to know more? Watch the replay of our latest webinar: “European Cybersecurity Trends after FIC” here. 

Cybersecurity Events in Paris Region 

Paris Cyber Summit, June, Paris, is the European digital economy’s forum. Key figures: 400 attendees, 60 speakers, 26 nationalities. Learn More. 

Cyber ECO IDF, November 2023, Paris, Campus Cyber - Paris La Défense - Conferences and networking with the entire cyber ecosystem of Paris Region. Learn More. 

LeHack Paris, June, Paris - Experts share technics to protect software and hardware in conferences and workshops. Learn More. 

Cloud Expo Europe, November, Paris - Cloud Expo Europe is the industry-leading event in France for tech professionals. It connects technologists, business leaders, senior business managers and experts in the fields of Cloud, Cybersecurity and Big Data. During the 2 days of the show, visitors can meet with 230 national and international leading suppliers, learn from 250 speakers, consolidate their networks and build business relationships. Learn More. 

Cloud+ Security Forum, April, Paris – The show offers a unique opportunity to understand the challenges of tomorrow through keynotes, round tables, REX, expert opinions. Learn More. 

Hack in Paris, September, Paris - High quality 5-day program covering every IT security topics in conferences, trainings, and workshops. Learn More. 

FRANSEC - Securing France from Cyber Threats, June, Paris La Défense - Networking and conferences on IT security for high level profiles (120 people). Learn More. 

Meet us at more events

In the News

Datadog’s Expansion to Paris Region
The spread of the coronavirus triggered a shift in the way we all live, work, travel and socialize. Of all changes, the most radical one has probably been the switch to “remote working” as companies were forced to shut their doors and employees are encouraged to work from home. Such a quick change forced companies into paying special attention to security monitoring, cloud supervision and early cyber-threat detection. We had the opportunity to ask Olivier Pomel, CEO of Datadog, a monitoring and security platform for cloud applications, his take on the company’s expansion to Paris Region, and the impact COVID-19 on Datadog’s business.
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