Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis outlined his country’s economic and technology policies at an event in San Francisco organized by Endeavor Greece and attended by approximately 250 entrepreneurs, investors and technology executives. Describing his visit to the Bay Area as a trip to gather information and attract investment, Mitsotakis visited Tesla and Sequoia Capital; he then said he would travel to New York for the United Nations General Assembly. He said Greece’s being readmitted to developed-market status by MSCI next year was an indication of the recovery in the economy.
Mitsotakis said his country had reduced its debt at a record pace and that its borrowing costs were lower than those of the United States. While Greece’s 10-year bond yield stood at approximately 4.3%, the rate on US Treasury bonds was approximately 5%. He recalled that Greek bond yields had risen above 40% in 2012 during the debt crisis.
Mitsotakis said a significant portion of the approximately €36 billion Greece received from the European Union’s post-COVID recovery fund had been allocated to digital infrastructure, citing the online public services portal and the supercomputer established in Lavrio with support from Hewlett Packard Enterprise to serve AI and scientific research. The supercomputer is expected to become operational within a few months.
Mitsotakis said the government had changed the taxation of stock options, relaxed labor laws and offered Greeks returning to the country lower taxes for up to seven years, while acknowledging that more work was still needed to speed up the processing of visa applications. He said public universities were now establishing startups and that the goal was to bring back the talent that had left the country during the debt crisis.
Mitsotakis, who said he did not have definitive answers on AI, stated that Greece would introduce a social media ban for children under 15 next January, but noted that the move may already be lagging behind because of the impact of AI chatbots. The education pilot being conducted with OpenAI aims to reduce teachers’ administrative burden and provide personalized AI tutors; however, he stressed that chatbots helping students do their homework must not prevent them from learning basic skills.
Mitsotakis said there had been no significant backlash against data centers in Greece, noting that Microsoft had established a data center cluster near Athens and that AWS had reached an agreement with the country’s largest energy company to build a data center in a former coal region. Saying that AI-related job losses would occur and that governments were not prepared for them, Mitsotakis stated that warnings about uncertainty from the experts developing the models should be taken into account and that “smart regulation” was inevitable.-vesm
Why it matters
This framework shows that Greece is seeking to redefine its economic position, identified with the debt crisis, not only through financial indicators but also through investments in technology and digital infrastructure. This approach is creating a more interconnected policy space for entrepreneurs, investors, skilled workers expected to return to the country and public universities. Digital public services, supercomputers and data centers are becoming parts of the same agenda in terms of public administration, scientific research and the energy transition. However, uncertainty remains over how to ensure that AI does not weaken basic skills in education and how its effects on employment will be managed. It also remains unclear whether faster visa procedures and new work arrangements will support the targeted flow of talent and investment.
Term: data center
A data center is a facility where servers are housed alongside cooling systems and uninterrupted power; discussions about the electricity and water consumption of AI investments center on these facilities.