The first “Tech Oscars” were handed out at VivaTech in Paris, a new awards program designed to honor breakthrough contributions in the global tech ecosystem. The ceremony, hosted by French telecom entrepreneur Xavier Niel, drew from a shortlist of finalists across categories that reflect the conference’s focus on AI, deep tech, and digital transformation.

Yann LeCun, Chief AI Scientist at Meta and a Turing Award winner, received the award for “AI Visionary.” The jury cited his foundational work on convolutional neural networks and his current research on self-supervised learning, which aims to make AI systems learn more like biological organisms. In his acceptance remarks, LeCun cautioned against an over-reliance on scaling large language models without world models, stating, “The future of AI won’t come just from more data and bigger models — we need architectures that can plan and reason.”

The “Global Founders” prize was shared by Alibaba’s co-founders Jack Ma and Joe Tsai. The award recognized their role in building the Chinese e-commerce and cloud giant from a small B2B marketplace into a global digital ecosystem. Ma delivered a video message in which he emphasized the importance of digital inclusion and entrepreneurship for emerging markets. Tsai, present at the event, added that Alibaba’s cloud division is now working on AI-powered supply chain tools that aim to cut costs for small businesses worldwide.

In the startup category, French robotics company OpenClaw won “Startup of the Year” for its adaptive robotic grippers that use machine learning to handle fragile or irregular objects without prior programming. Founder Émilie Fouillade said the award and the €50,000 prize would help the company expand sales to North America and double its engineering team by the end of 2025. OpenClaw’s technology is already being piloted by two major automotive parts manufacturers.

A fourth prize, “Tech for Good,” went to the Indian social enterprise AgNext, which uses spectral analysis and AI to assess food quality and safety in agricultural supply chains. CEO Taranjeet Singh Bhamra noted that the technology is now deployed in over 1,000 procurement centers across India, reducing post-harvest losses by up to 15%.

VivaTech organizers said the awards would become an annual fixture, with plans to add a “Deep Tech Breakthrough” category next year. The event itself hosted over 150,000 visitors and more than 2,800 exhibitors, underscoring France’s push to position itself as Europe’s leading startup and innovation hub.

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