Serbia, science, AI & the EU

CGTN Europe

As AI takes center stage at this year's Web Summit, Serbia is emerging as an ambitious tech player. But as Serbia eyes EU membership, how will it navigate the bloc’s Artificial Intelligence Act? CGTN’s Li Jianhua spoke to Jelena Begovic - Serbia's Minister of Science, Technological Development and Innovation.

Transcript

00:00At the moment, we have a significant growth in the number of startups in Serbia.

00:06We are not a large country compared to China, so we now have around 800 startups, but these

00:14numbers are growing on an annual level around 25-30%.

00:21And overall value of this ecosystem is around 1 billion euros.

00:27So our goal is now to build up and add value to this ecosystem.

00:35And we know artificial intelligence is a prominent focus at the Web Summit every year.

00:40And what is Serbia's approach to adopting AI responsibly?

00:47Actually in 2019, we adopted the first strategy for the development of AI.

00:53So the government and we recognized that the upcoming new technology, although it's

00:59been with us for past 20 years, well actually, for instance, we introduced in 2017 coding

01:06and Python in our elementary schools.

01:09So back at that time, we already recognized that we have to prepare new generations, how

01:15to use it wisely for the good cause, how to educate young generations to be prepared

01:24for this technology, which will be the basic tool for them in the future.

01:29So we also introduced AI in the secondary education and then later on in higher education.

01:39Serbia has invested heavily in artificial intelligence and now is trying to get into

01:44the European Union.

01:46And the EU, we know, has rolled out the EU AI Act already to reign in or to regulate

01:52this industry, since we have invested so much in boosting and developing AI.

01:59But if Serbia joins the European Union, do you think that would probably force you to

02:06fine-tune your policy in the future?

02:09Well, as an accession country, we are fine-tuning our policies.

02:13Most of our policies with EU, and that's a process.

02:17So once we join EU, we will have to, you know, align with the existing policies.

02:23Nevertheless, policies are like living things.

02:27They can be changed, you know, according to the reaction of the startup community, of

02:33the private sector, also in Europe.

02:35Europe is facing a huge challenge to stay competitive with new technologies, particularly

02:41when we have two big players like United States and China that are becoming really

02:46technological giants and the drivers of the innovation in the world.

02:52So Europe has to position itself.

02:57I mean, new technologies have to be regulated, but to keep the balance, not to over-regulate

03:03it, so to, you know, keep the further development, it is not an easy task.

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