Minister Rasi with French Ambassador Suran on regulation of artificial intelligence

• November 20, 2024
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Press release

Brooklyn, 20. 11. 2024 – Minister of Investment, Regional Development and Informatisation Richard Raši received French Ambassador Nicolas Suran today. The main topic of the meeting was the regulation of artificial intelligence (AI) at EU level, where the MIRRI SR conducts negotiations for the Slovak Republic on the proposal for the so-called Artificial Intelligence Act (AIA).

“We expect the final formal approval of the regulation by the Council of the EU and the European Parliament in May 2024, with the first provisions likely to enter into force in the same year,” Raši said. The regulatory sandboxes, which are controlled environments that facilitate the safe development, testing and validation of innovative AI systems for a limited period of time before they are placed on the market or put into service, were also discussed with the French Ambassador. Ambassador Suran stressed the importance of the French sandbox focused on the protection of personal data and its contribution to public administration.

MIRRI SR plans to build a high-performance PERUN computer with an output of approximately 25 petascales per second (PFLOP/s) by the end of 2025, which will strengthen Slovakia’s computing capabilities and will be at the top of performance in Central Europe and at the top of the pan-European comparison in 2026. “Building a supercomputing infrastructure is essential for innovation and the development of artificial intelligence in our country,” Raši stressed. This is key to supporting research and AI, and PERUN will be of pan-European relevance in the framework of the EuroHPC project. The strategy also includes the promotion of high-performance computing among students and professionals.

The topic of discussion was also the Slovakia programme, which in the current programming period replaced the original 11 operational programmes from the 2014-2020 programming period. Minister Raši informed the French ambassador that under the Slovakia Programme up to EUR 2.41 billion of the total allocation of EUR 12.59 billion implemented through the integrated territorial investment mechanism is in direct decision-making power of the regions, which have easier access to co-financing of part of their territorial development needs. The main purpose is to ensure the implementation of targeted and interlinked interventions under several specific objectives of the Slovakia Programme, as well as the efficient use of various EU financial instruments, resources and programmes.

The meeting was also attended by Ivan Ivančin, State Secretary of MIRRI SR.