The aim of this thesis is to analyse the growth in French higher education provision in Artificial Intelligence that has been driven by the public authorities since the late 2010s. In France, following the publication of the Villani report, efforts to position the nation as a global player in the development of AI have resulted in the announcement that the number of courses in artificial intelligence will double in the short term. At the intersection of the sociology of digital technology, the sociology of science and the sociology of education, this study aims to analyse the model of scientific and academic development that this policy of rolling out French training in AI is shaping, by looking at both the practical ways in which it is being implemented at national and local level (setting up training courses, recruiting students, etc.), and the nature of the knowledge in Artificial Intelligence that is transmitted within these new courses.