Bordeaux’s AI automation agency.

Bordeaux is the largest city in Nouvelle-Aquitaine and one of the most diversified economies in France. Aerospace, space and defence sit at its core: Gironde hosts roughly 300 aerospace companies including seven major groups. Dassault Aviation builds the Rafale and Falcon in Mérignac, ArianeGroup runs space launchers and propulsion at Le Haillan and Saint-Médard-en-Jalles, and Thales, Safran, Airbus Atlantic, Daher and Sabena Technics fill out the Bordeaux Aéroparc. The regional sector employs around 24,800 people, with about 12,400 concentrated in the Bordeaux-Mérignac zone.

The wine and agri-food trade is the other pillar, and it is the largest single employer in Gironde. The CIVB reports around 55,000 direct and indirect jobs and roughly EUR 4 billion in turnover, with 450 million bottles a year shipped to more than 150 countries through the centuries-old Place de Bordeaux network of 300-plus negociants and brokers. Add Ceva Sante Animale in Libourne, Smurfit Kappa packaging at Biganos, and a forestry economy fed by Europe largest planted forest, and the agri-industrial base runs deep.

Big science and digital round out the picture. The CEA Laser Megajoule at Le Barp is one of the world two largest laser-fusion facilities, anchoring the ALPHA Route des Lasers photonics and microwave cluster and its ALPhANOV technology centre. The Inria centre at the University of Bordeaux runs 18 project-teams in high-performance computing, machine learning and digital health, and Bordeaux hosts one of the deepest AI-startup communities in France. Cdiscount, headquartered on the Quai de Bacalan, runs one of the country largest e-commerce platforms.

Bordeaux firms automating aerospace quality and traceability documentation, wine-trade allocation and export administration, supplier and procurement workflows, patient access for the CHU network, and e-commerce customer service are pulling ahead of peers still doing this work by hand. With AS9100 aerospace standards, EU dual-use export controls and EU food-traceability law all in play, automation here has to ship with an audit trail, EU data residency and CNIL-aligned governance from day one.