Slovakia is predestined to become a leader in implementing various state-of-the-art technologies, said Slovak President Peter Pellegrini during the Itapa conference focusing on artificial intelligence held at Bratislava Castle on Tuesday.
"Being a small country, Slovakia has a huge advantage over Germany, France and other large countries in that we're dynamically capable of adapting, implementing and testing many of the most advanced technologies and then implementing them fully across our entire territory," said Pellegrini.
According to him, the EU doesn't lack talent, scientists or skilled innovators, but compared with China or the United States, there is a visible shortage of capital infrastructure. He noted that Europe, including Slovakia, is still a consumer of technologies from Asia or the USA, which have already moved on. However, European countries could still identify a specific area in which they could become a global leader.
"There are areas such as the environment and health care, in which, unlike other continents, we currently have a huge amount of data thanks to digitisation. If we could put all this data together, not just from one country, but perhaps from all European countries, we would have a unique dataset capable of creating a huge breakthrough in subsequent research and development using artificial intelligence," noted Pellegrini.
Both in Slovakia and elsewhere in Europe, there are talented people with an innovative spirit, but when it comes to acquiring a 'capital injection' as the next step, the support system for start-ups in the European market isn't working as well as elsewhere, said Pellegrini, adding that European start-ups often move to the USA to find investors.
In the EU, stated Pellegrini, there's a problem with "over-regulation" of the entire environment, as EU-member states don't operate as a single market in terms of support for start-ups and innovation. Unless this barrier is removed, the trend of talent leaving for other continents will continue, he said.
Source: TASR
