THE SECTORS
Sophia Antipolis’ key sectors
HEALTH & BIOTECHS
The Alpes Maritimes is home to more than 250 companies and 30 research laboratories in Health, Biotechnology, Pharma and HealthTech, including around fifty in Sophia Antipolis.
The French Riviera is France’s 2nd leading centre for clinical trials and the 2nd leading for Life Sciences. Sophia Antipolis is home to the Eurobiomed Center for European Competitiveness, a 23,000m² BioPark, and one of France’s 4 Interdisciplinary Artificial Intelligence Institutes, working on the complex subjects of AI to support medicine and computational biology/bio-inspired AI.
INTELLIGENT VEHICLES & MOBILITY
The Smart Vehicle French Riviera Initiative was launched in November 2017 in Sophia Antipolis by a handful of players in smart and connected mobility – Renault Software Labs, IBM, Bosch, Marelli, NXP and Epicnpoc. It draws on an entire ecosystem working on intelligent vehicles and sustainable mobility.
The Initiative strives to establish Sophia Antipolis as an Automotive Valley to meet the needs of those present on the ground, to attract new stakeholders and talents and enable the emergence of start-ups, born in the territory and capable of having a global impact.
YACHTING & BLUETECH
The Yachting / Bluetech sector represents a strategic part of the yachting sector’s economic activity in the Alpes-Maritimes and constitutes a powerful marker of attractivity and international influence for the Sophia Antipolis technopole. The transformation of Port Vauban in Antibes, the largest yachting marina in Europe, into a “Smart Port”, brings in its wake a Yachting Technopole uniting the sector’s most innovative players.
Sportech
The concept of sport on the Riviera embodies a differentiated and experiential tourist product, appealing in particular to a young and international audience, with a new image, linked to vitality, well-being, outdoing oneself, cutting-edge, high-quality equipment and a training area open to all types of sports men and women. All of this in an exceptional environment, with 300 days of sunshine per year, 15 ski resorts, 120 km of coastline, considered as some of the most desirable in the world, served by 35 different ports.
Sophia Antipolis has thus established itself as a key location for sport, in particular with the creation of new sports areas, including the renowned Mouratoglou Tennis Academy and the future Stéphane Diagana Sport-Health Campus.
Finally, all of this new infrastructure also relies on digital companies, the use of data, AI and calculating performance for optimising results.
CYBERSECURITY
In a technopole whose identity is deeply rooted in digital technology and based on artificial intelligence; digital security is of unequivocal concern. Sophia Antipolis is home to many companies and laboratories in the sector such as Fortinet, Orange Cyberdéfense, Squad, Janua, Accenture, Videtics, InfraOps, and others.
Digital security refers to the products, services and technologies which enable identities and digital data to be safeguarded and secured, it also protects the digital systems processing this very data.
FINTECH
Fintech is financial technology helping to support financial services. Fintech companies use digital technologies and artificial intelligence to offer innovative, breakthrough and more efficient solutions to resolve existing and emerging problems of the finance industry.
PROPTECH
The PROPTECH (Property Technologies) sector uses digital technologies, data and artificial intelligence in the real estate, construction, asset management and brokerage sectors, as well as for neighbourhoods and cities (Smartcity), buildings and smart infrastructure (Smart Ports for example), to optimise the user and manager’s experience.
EDTECHS
EdTechs are technologies relating to the production of digital content and services for the education and training sectors. The leading European cluster dedicated to Edtechs and e-Education, EducAzur, is based in Sophia Antipolis. EducAzur brings together all the players in innovation with a view to accelerating the adoption and use of digital technology by all.
In Sophia Antipolis , the association helps with the emergence of a local workforce with a level of training meeting the needs of the digital world and stimulates technological innovation in the area by promoting innovative solutions to problems encountered in education and training.
EducAzur also hosts the national focus event “EdTech / Entertainment”, supported by French Tech Côte d’Azur.
