Artificial intelligence, the cloud and public data are gradually changing the balance of power within the state. For two decades, digital technology was mainly treated as a subject of administrative modernization. Its role was to simplify procedures, reduce operating costs and improve the quality of public services, an approach which is today reaching its limits.
The exploitation of artificial intelligence models, the hosting of sensitive public data, the management of digital identities and the securing of cloud infrastructures have become subjects of sovereignty. Administrations are no longer only faced with software choices, but must arbitrate between technological dependence, strategic autonomy, pooling of investments and control of critical infrastructures.
It is in this context that the transformation of the Interministerial Digital Directorate into ARIANE, the future Referent Authority for artificial intelligence and digital technology of the State, takes place. The appointments of Walter Arnaud at the head of the DINUM and Pierre Bouillon at the head of the DITP constitute the first visible expression of this reorganization.
To understand this development, however, we must look both at the announcements made by David Amiel, Minister of Action and Public Accounts, and at the results of previous years.
DINUM has already changed its nature
The Interministerial Digital Directorate is today an administration whose scope no longer has much to do with that of its origins. The management no longer only manages digital transformation projects but now operates some of the most sensitive infrastructures of the state apparatus.
FranceConnect has 45 million users and recorded more than 480 million connections during the year. The State Interministerial Network connects 14,000 administrative sites and serves nearly a million users. LaSuite has become the daily work environment for several hundred thousand public officials.
These platforms now constitute operating infrastructures of the administration. The change is even more visible on the cloud and artificial intelligence side. DINUM is piloting a “Cloud at the center” strategy which represents more than 200 million euros in cumulative public orders, of which, according to its annual report, 88% benefit French players. She also supervises the establishment of the Interministerial Generative AI Base, intended to pool the infrastructures, models and computing capacities necessary for administrations.
The creation of ARIANE thus appears less as a rupture than as the institutional recognition of a transformation already well underway.
From public innovation to strategic infrastructure
The trajectory of the DINUM reflects a broader evolution of the French digital state; in the mid-2010s, the main challenge was to introduce software methods into the administration. Beta.gouv, state startups or Simplified Procedures embodied this phase of innovation centered on uses. The objective was then to improve the user experience, accelerate development cycles and bring public services closer to the needs of citizens.
The following decade saw another challenge emerge with digital identity, cloud infrastructures, computing capabilities, public data and large artificial intelligence models becoming strategic assets. The question is no longer just about developing better services, but about who controls the infrastructure on which these services rely.
Artificial intelligence accelerates centralization
The widespread use of AI is probably the main driver of this development. The administration has long operated according to a relatively decentralized logic, where each ministry developed its own applications, its own infrastructures and its own tools.
Artificial intelligence now makes this model more difficult to maintain; computing costs, security requirements, data needs and the scarcity of skills favor pooling. The creation of the Interministerial Generative AI Base, Albert API or the AI Assistant responds precisely to this logic. The objective is not to remove all autonomy from ministries, but to pool the most expensive technological layers in order to concentrate resources on business uses.
This development is gradually bringing the State closer to the models observed among large technological operators with a common infrastructure, specialized services and centralized governance of critical assets.
The results of the outgoing team as a starting point
This reading also leads to a reassessment of the role of the team led by Stéphanie Schaer and Thierry Lambert. Most of the bricks that ARIANE will pilot tomorrow are already operational or in the process of being deployed. LaSuite, the trusted cloud, sovereign infrastructures, the modernized interministerial network, the European digital commons and even the shared artificial intelligence infrastructure have been developed in recent years.
A development which has contributed to strengthening the role of technical authority and “State CTO” of Dinum.
The challenge of the next stage consists of organizing their governance as they become central to the functioning of the administration.
How to arbitrate investments between ministries? How to organize the computing capacities necessary for artificial intelligence? How can we reduce technological dependencies without slowing down innovation? What is the connection between national infrastructures and European initiatives?
These are the challenges that await Walter Arnaud and Pierre Bouillon
Walter Arnaud, the critical infrastructure engineer
The choice of Walter Arnaud reflects the evolution of the role entrusted to the future ARIANE. Doctor in signal processing, graduated from ENSTA Bretagne, worked at the Directorate General of Armaments, the General Staff of the Armed Forces and the structures for maintaining military equipment in operational condition, he belongs to a generation of senior civil servants trained in the management of complex systems. His career path led him to both economic intelligence and interministerial crisis management, before leading the logistics of the Vaccination Task Force during the pandemic and then the “war economy” project within the Defense Industry Directorate.
Pierre Bouillon, the specialist in the transformation of public services
Conversely, Pierre Bouillon’s career is more focused on the relationship between the administration and its users. A former student of ENA, he successively directed the France Services program at the National Agency for Territorial Cohesion, served as deputy chief of staff to the Minister of Transformation and Public Service and then as chief of staff to the Minister responsible for Artificial Intelligence and Digital Technology. More recently, he worked on artificial intelligence subjects at the City of Paris. His profile illustrates the second dimension of the reform: improving access to rights, administrative simplification and the quality of services provided to citizens.
Where Walter Arnaud embodies the rise in power of the technological layer of the State, Pierre Bouillon appears as the representative of an approach more oriented towards uses, administrative pathways and the user experience.
Together, their appointments draw an increasingly clear separation between the management of digital infrastructures and that of the public services which rely on them.
