Published by Maman Thilor Sambe, on 24/10/2025
Born in 1929 in Cherchell, Algeria and died in 1992, Alice Recoque is one of those women who shaped science without ever receiving just recognition. A graduate of ESPCII, she was one of five women to obtain this degree in her promotion. Her passion for innovation quickly led her to join the Society for Electronics and Automation (SEA), where she would illustrate the very conception of computers, a field previously reserved for men.
An emblematic mini-computer in the Computing Plan, used to control nuclear power plants, missiles, robots, scientific experiments, and networks like Cyclades
One of the first French desktop computers, used for scientific calculations and conversational computing
From 1984–1985, direction of artificial intelligence research within the Bull group, in connection with Inria and other public organizations
Participation in 1978 in the founding meeting of the National Commission for Informatics and Freedoms, where she warned of the risks of surveillance by states and companies
Research on new computer architectures and real-time systems that were smaller and more interactive, as part of SEA and then CII.
Today, her name is given to France's first exascale supercomputer "Alice Recoque", intended for scientific computing and AI in Europe.
