The maritime transport giant, CMA CGM, is inaugurating a new training and innovation center in Marseille, named Tangram, with priorities focused on artificial intelligence (AI) and climate, aiming to achieve its zero-carbon goal by 2050.
The training center has been built within the heart of the National Superior Maritime School (ENSM) in Marseille, around a renovated bastide designed by architect Jean-Michel Wilmotte, at the foot of the Calanques National Park.
With its glass façade, Tangram is envisioned as a showcase of the history and ambitions of the container shipping specialist, which has diversified into logistics and media, boasting nearly 180,000 employees worldwide.
Tangram aims to train 3,000 employees by 2024 and 5,000 by 2025 across three “strategic” training areas: climate, AI, and leadership. For each of these themes, the group has partnered with renowned institutions such as the Imperial College Business School in London and HEC.
According to Angelo-Gabriel Mikael, director of Tangram, AI is a priority for the maritime industry, which is quite traditional and conservative, and thus challenging to disrupt. The training center already hosts a robot dog that patrols the site and is used in warehouses for surveillance rounds.
The group’s CEO, Rodolphe Saadé, has also committed to AI research by creating, along with Xavier Niel, a nonprofit laboratory dedicated to AI research called “Kyutai.”
The climate training aims to raise awareness among learners about their role and responsibility in the decarbonization roadmap. Although Rodolphe Saadé cautioned in an interview with Le Monde that “it will be very difficult” to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, the group remains determined to reach this goal.
Three navigation simulators from Tangram will also be used by ENSM students, who serve as a recruitment pool for CMA CGM.
After two years of exceptional profits, the group experienced a decrease in its net result in 2023, divided by seven, and anticipates a challenging 2024 due to geopolitical tensions and a cyclical downturn. Despite these challenges, CMA CGM continues to invest in training and innovation to achieve its long-term objectives.