IRISA

What IRISA does

IRISA (Institut de Recherche en Informatique et Systèmes Aléatoires) is a French joint research laboratory (Unité Mixte de Recherche, UMR 6074) founded in the mid-1970s and headquartered in Rennes, with additional campuses in Lannion and Vannes. As the largest French computer science research laboratory, it is jointly operated by multiple French public research and higher-education institutions, including CNRS, Inria, Université de Rennes, ENS Rennes, INSA Rennes, CentraleSupélec, IMT Atlantique, Inserm, and Université Bretagne Sud. The lab is structured around 7 scientific departments and approximately 30 research teams, producing roughly 1,000 peer-reviewed publications and 80 PhD thesis defenses annually, with a research community spanning 56+ nationalities and over 40% international doctoral students.

IRISA's core technology consists of six major shared experimental platforms: ImmerStar (a collaborative immersive VR space built on the 10x3x3m Immersia cave plus the Immermove motion-capture system), Grid'5000 (a large-scale testbed for cloud, HPC, and Big Data experiments), GENOuest (a complete bioinformatics environment with hardware, databases, and pipelines), NEURINFO (a medical imaging research platform equipped with a 3T MRI at CHU Rennes), ROBSTAR (a robotics platform covering robot vision, mobile robots, indoor drones, manipulation, and haptics), and EEWOK (a very low-power wireless sensor node platform with FPGA, energy harvesting, and wake-up radio). Research spans distributed systems, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, robotics, bioinformatics, virtual reality, software engineering, and network management.

As a non-profit public research laboratory, IRISA does not sell commercial products or charge customers for platform access in a conventional pricing sense. Its revenue model is institutional: funding flows from French public research budgets (CNRS, Inria, member universities, ANR projects), regional authorities (Brittany Region), European programs (ERC, EIT Digital, Marie Skłodowska-Curie, COST actions), and collaborative research contracts with industry and hospital partners such as CHU Rennes. Outputs are disseminated through open-access channels (HAL publication archive, TEL thesis repository) and via formal academic partnerships with universities across Europe, the Americas, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.

Name

IRISA

Legal name

IRISA (Institut de Recherche en Informatique et Systèmes Aléatoires)

Website

https://irisa.fr

Company type

Private

Founded year

1976

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Computer Science Research

NAICS

Computer Systems Design and Related Services (54151), Management, Scientific, and Technical Consulting Services (5416)

SIC

Services-Commercial Physical & Biological Research (8731), Services-Computer Integrated Systems Design (7373)

akta.pro primary industry

Survey, Panel & Fieldwork Services (BPAHALAJ)

akta.pro secondary industries

IT Operations Management (ITOM) Platforms (HDAEALAC), SCADA/HMI Platforms (IMAGABAB), AI Integration & Orchestration Platforms (Connectors, Workflow, iPaaS for AI) (HDAEANAI)

Keywords

• Computer science research
• Cybersecurity research
• Robotics research
• Bioinformatics research
• Artificial intelligence research

Headquarters

HQ city

Lannion

HQ country

France

HQ region

Europe

Offices3 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Infrastructure

Distribution channels2 records

Marketing channels3 records

Core offering

IRISA is a French joint research laboratory (UMR 6074) in digital sciences and information technologies that conducts fundamental and applied research across distributed systems, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, robotics, bioinformatics, virtual reality, and software engineering. The laboratory operates multiple shared experimental research platforms (ImmerStar, Grid'5000, GENOuest, NEURINFO, ROBSTAR, EEWOK) for use by academic and industrial researchers, and disseminates research outputs through the HAL publication archive and TEL thesis repository.

Product overview

IRISA is a French research laboratory in digital sciences and technologies (UMR 6074), not a product company. Its offerings consist of shared research platforms for the scientific community: ImmerStar (virtual reality), GRID 5000 (high-performance computing), GENOuest Bioinformatics, NEURINFO (medical imaging), ROBSTAR (robotics), and EEWOK (wireless sensor networks). These are experimental platforms available to academic and industrial researchers, not commercial products. Research outputs are disseminated via HAL publication archive and TEL thesis repository.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• ImmerStar (IMMERSIA + IMMERMOVE) Collaborative immersive virtual reality space combining IMMERSIA (3D VR platform with 10x3x3m dimensions for real-time multimodal interaction) and IMMERMOVE (motion capture technology platform for studying crowd behaviors).
• GRID 5000 Experimental research platform for large-scale computer systems enabling experiments in cloud computing, high-performance computing (HPC), and Big Data.
• GENOuest Bioinformatics Complete bioinformatics environment offering hardware and software infrastructure, public databases, processing tools and pipelines for genomic and biological data analysis.
• NEURINFO Medical imaging platform providing resources for clinical research, methodological and technological development in human in vivo imaging and neuroinformatics, equipped with a 3T MRI at CHU Rennes.
• ROBSTAR Robotics platform with five specialized labs: robot vision, mobile robotics, indoor drones, advanced manipulation robotics, and haptic interfaces for human-robot interaction.
• EEWOK Platform Energy Efficient Wireless Sensor Networks platform with multiple components: Rose SDR (software radio), PowWow (wireless sensor networks), Amalo (LPWAN networks), Nwur (wake-up radios), Zyggie (wireless body area networks), and SmartSense (connected building).
• Scientific Production Repository (HAL) Publication archive accessible via HAL (archives ouvertes) containing approximately 1,000 publications per year from IRISA researchers, consultable without access code.
• Thesis Archive (TEL) Theses-en-ligne archiving server for consulting and depositing PhD thesis and Habilitation to Direct Research (HDR) subjects, supporting approximately 80 thesis defenses per year.

Quantifiable outcome

• 1,000 publications annually in international peer-reviewed venues
• +3 more outcomes

Segments2 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability12 records

Feature6 records

Partnerships

Three partnerships are on record, tiered core and key.

• CHU RennescoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerIRISA maintains close ties with CHU Rennes, particularly through a joint team with INSERM and the shared NEURINFO platform for medical imaging research. The collaboration enables neuroimaging and neuroinformatics research including a newly inaugurated ultra-high performance 3T MRI dedicated to research.
• Labex CominLabscoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerLabex Excellence of the Investment for the Future Program federating the best research teams in Brittany and Nantes in telecommunications (approximately 1,100 researchers including more than 500 permanent researchers). About half of IRISA teams are involved in CominLabs funded projects with over 20 funded projects.
• C-Cube Cybersecurity CenterkeyStrategic or Co-development PartnerInter-establishment competence center to strengthen training, research and innovation in cybersecurity. Led by Rennes academic institutions (Université Rennes 1, Rennes 2, CentraleSupelec, ENSAI, ENS Rennes, INSA Rennes, IEP, IMT Atlantique) with support from Inria, CNRS, and Brittany Region.

Scale indicators6 records

Recent moves15 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• Alan Turing Institute: UK's national institute for data science and AI, founded in 2015 as a public-sector research organization. Comparable scale and multi-university governance structure, and a direct international peer in AI and data science research.
• INRIA (Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique): France's national computer science and applied mathematics research institute, a co-tutelle of IRISA (UMR 6074). Operates research centers across France with similar mix of fundamental research, doctoral training, and platform infrastructure, and competes with IRISA for talent and ANR funding.
• DFKI (German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence): Germany's leading applied AI research center with public-private partnership model. Has similar multi-site structure, strong publication output, and comparable research scope in AI, robotics, cybersecurity, and speech/VR — a direct European peer.
• LAAS-CNRS (Laboratory for Analysis and Architecture of Systems): Toulouse-based CNRS-affiliated research lab (UMR 8001) with similar multi-disciplinary computer science and systems research (robotics, AI, embedded systems, networks). One of the other major French CS research labs and a direct domestic peer competing for ANR and regional funding.
• MIT CSAIL (Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory): One of the world's largest and most influential computer science research laboratories, with comparable multi-disciplinary scope (AI, robotics, systems, theory). Direct international benchmark for research output, talent density, and platform infrastructure.
• Max Planck Institute for Informatics: One of Europe's leading computer science research institutes with similar research scope (algorithms, computer vision, database systems, computer graphics). Comparable scale and publication output, and a direct international competitor for ERC-level talent and EU funding.
• CEA List (CEA Saclay): French public R&D institute focused on digital systems, AI, and cybersecurity, with similar research scope to IRISA including embedded systems, cybersecurity, and interactive systems. A direct French public-sector peer.
• ETH Zurich Department of Computer Science: One of Europe's strongest CS research departments with comparable multi-disciplinary scope (systems, AI, theory, robotics, security) and high publication output. Competes with IRISA for top European research talent and EU/ERC funding.

Broad incumbents

• Microsoft Research: Industrial research lab with global presence and significantly larger budget than IRISA, working across similar areas (AI, systems, security, HCI). Competes with IRISA for top-tier academic talent and conference publications, though with very different funding model.
• CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique): France's largest public research organization and a co-tutelle of IRISA. Operates 1,000+ laboratories across all scientific disciplines including computer science, providing the institutional framework and funding that IRISA operates within.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/irisa-lab
• Xx.com/Irisa_lab

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles4 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about IRISA