Greece in the race of AI
How is the country faring?
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🤖 Greece in the race of AI
We’ve talked a couple of times already about Greece’s relationship with AI.
First, we’ve covered the large, impactful and global Greek AI ecosystem.
Then, we discussed how and how many people in Greece have started using AI.
Now, it’s time to see how Greece compares to the rest of the world.
What we will be covering today:
The Global AI Index 2024
Digital Economy and Society Index 2024
Government AI readiness 2024
The AI Maturity Matrix 2024
OECD AI Policy Observatory
(Bonus) Exciting news about the Greek AI scene
Let’s jump in.
The Global AI Index 2024
The Global AI Index is the first index to benchmark nations on their level of investment, innovation and implementation of artificial intelligence.
How does Greece perform here?
Greece scores 9.24. The top country in the ranking is the USA with a score of 100.
The final Index is a combination of absolute and relative measures that are broken down into ‘Scale’ and ‘Intensity’.
‘Scale’ measures a nation’s absolute AI capacity, showing its output on the global stage. US comes by far first here, followed by China, and then everyone else follows far behind.
‘Intensity’ measures AI capacity relative to the size of a country’s population or economy. The leading countries here are Singapore, Israel and Switzerland.
Greece has relatively good level of AI intensity (ranks 34th) but is not as strong in terms of scale (ranks 52th).
Overall, Greece ranks 42nd in The Global AI Index for 2024.
Not great, but not terrible either.
Let’s drill down a little bit more.
If we look at the most important adoption and innovation drivers, Greece lags across every relevant indicator.
This underperformance is not just against global leaders, but also against comparable countries in the EMEA region (like Italy, Spain and Israel).
Digital Economy and Society Index 2024
According to the European Commission’s Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI), Greece ranks pretty low in terms of AI readiness compared to its peers.
In 2022, Greece’s AI readiness score according to DESI was around 25th in EU.
This position marginally improved to 23th in 2024.
This is still quite low, but on an upward trajectory.
Government AI readiness 2024
Greece ranks 59th out of 188 countries worldwide in the annual Government AI Readiness report for 2024 prepared by Oxford Insights. The Index ranks governments based on how well they have integrated AI into public service delivery.
Again, not terrible, but not great either.
The AI Maturity Matrix 2024
BCG recently published a report ranking economies based on their AI maturity.
Let’s look at the distribution of countries in terms of AI adoption.
To be totally honest, this chart does not tells us very much. It is typical “consultspeak” (sorry to my consulting readers, I love you, but we both know this is true).
A slightly more interesting chart is that of AI readiness: Greece ranks in the top 75% group, i.e. below average.
OECD AI Policy Observatory
Greece ranks above the OECD average in terms of prevalence of AI-skilled workers.
This ranking draws its data from Linkedin. In simple terms, what this chart shows us is that the self-reported AI skills of Greek talent on Linkedin is above average.
Greece is also the country with the second largest net migration outflows of AI talent to the rest of the world (after Israel).
This means that Greece exports a larger number of AI talent engineers than it attracts.
Greek AI talent is clearly very sought after. It will be important to find a way to leverage it even better and establish the domestic reasons that will retain it and keep it coming back.
Let’s look at recent news that offer some hope.
Exciting news about the Greek AI scene
There are a many promising stories about the rising Greek AI ecosystem. On a high level, here are the three most interesting ones for me.
NeurIPS performance remains high
Greece has consistently achieved a very strong presence in the top AI conference in the world, NeurIPS, throughout the years.
During the latest conference that took place in 2024, the researchers affiliated with the Archimedes Research Unit at Athena Research Center in Athens made more than 38 groundbreaking contributions. Many more Greeks from around the world participated with cutting-edge research.
Pharos AI factory created
Pharos, one of the first AI factories funded by the EU, will be based in Greece. AI factories bring together three essential components: supercomputers, data and human capital.
The project is intended to serve as an AI hub for academia, research, the public sector, and private companies in Greece. It aims to work closely with and bring together talented AI researchers, new startups and small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs).
Pharos has a total budget of €30 million and has just started its construction, with an expected total development duration of 36 months.
“Greeks in AI” conference launches
I left the best for last. This is by far my favorite piece of news on the topic.
The inaugural Greeks in AI 2025 conference is predicted (by me) to be the greatest tech event to take place in Greece this year.
If you are a technical person that loves AI, or a non-technical person that wants to learn from the very best, this is the perfect conference for you.
The event is organized by some of the greatest Greek AI researchers in the world. This includes top experts in robotics, machine vision and deep learning. The conference enjoys the cross-institutional support of Archimedes, HIAS, HERON and FORTH — some of the top Greek scientific institutes out there.
Registrations have just opened. You don’t want to miss out on it!
Conclusion
Recent AI initiatives offer glimmers of hope and our local talent exhibits immense potential. However, Greece still has a very long way to go in the global race of AI.
My hope is we take this race seriously, invest proper resources, leverage our large community of AI experts, properly train people for these new tools and stay away from political gimmicks.
🏭 Economy & Business
Greek Finance Minister vows to utilize all available assets of the state
Greek PM says Greece will be targeting 20% investments-to-GDP ratio
Climate Change Performance Index 2025 — Greece rises six places to 22nd
Global Terrorism Index 2025 — Greece improves its rank by one to 36th
Global Financial Centres Index 37 — Athens moves up one place to 109th
Anholt-Ipsos Nation Brands Index 2023 — Greece rises to 21st place
Decoding Housing Affordability in Greece — a deep-dive by Alpha Bank
Parliamentary Budget Office released its March 2025 quarterly report
🤖 Tech & Startups
Google’s presence in Greece has strategic importance, says country GM
Revolut’s CMO calls Greece one of the most dynamic markets in Europe
Dianeosis launches detailed study on tech & economic growth in Greece
Plum (fintech) has secured £15M in venture debt financing from BBVA
Prosperty (proptech) raised €5.5M in strategic investment led by Eurobank
European Dynamics (IT services) received minority investment led CAPZA
Dikaio.ai (legal LLM) built by Decode+ raised round from Genesis Ventures
Praxis, a Sam Altman backed company, scouts Athens to build a tech utopia
🙌 Celebrating Greek wins
World Human Forum’s Eden in Olympia is a musical film that lets everyone feel the magic and grandeur of ancient Greece like never before
Weseayou is the first open digital platform for monitoring the implementation of national commitments and obligations to protect Greece’s marine environment
Despina Moschou (University of Bath), an expert in Lab-on-Chip diagnostics, has been elected Fellow at leading medical & biological engineering association EAMBES
🔦 Spotlight: An unexpected masterpiece
If you have not watched it yet, then you definitely should. Agios Paisios: Apo ta Farasa ston ourano is a televisual masterpiece about the life of Saint Paisios of Mount Athos. An amazing life story, incredible performances, beautiful landscapes, great shooting, and an ode to a part of Greece that many of us are often forgetting.
You do not have to be religious to enjoy this TV series. In fact, you will probably enjoy and appreciate it even more if you are not. I hope we find a way to promote it globally.
What a way to end a newsletter on AI, right!?
Happy Easter everyone!
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Until next time!
Interesting statistics. Thanks for sharing! Curious how the recent U.S. and Saudi deal which change the landscape and place Arab countries on the index in the near future.
Thanks,
Nick
https://hometreedigital.com