When Credit Lyonnais built itself a grand new office near the Opera in the center of Paris in the 1870s, it used a piece of the Louvre as a model and commissioned Gustave Eiffel’s atelier to design its soaring glass canopy.

Starting this fall, the top two floors of Le Centorial, as the building is known, will belong to GE Digital’s first global “Digital Foundry,” a collaborative space where coders, data scientists and app developers can incubate new startups and work with customers on new software applications.

GE is committed to helping Europe develop the building blocks for their Industrial Internet

“Europe has the talent and infrastructure to lead a productivity revolution and the digitization of industry must be at the core of this mission,” said GE chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt. “GE is committed to helping Europe develop the building blocks for their Industrial Internet that will help the continent’s companies turn information into insights and insights into outcomes.”

The new digital foundry will serve European customers and partners, and is the first of four foundries planned this year, says GE. This first Digital Foundry will add 250 jobs in Paris, focused on engineering, data science, user experience and design thinking.

As part of the Foundry opening, GE also partnered with Numa, the first startup accelerator in France, and government agencies including Banque Publique d’Investissement (BPI) to identify and grow high-potential ideas and startups in the region, says the company.