Key takeaways
- Greece's economic recovery and reformed policies now attract tech investment, with the country set to regain developed market status from MSCI next year.
- Mitsotakis acknowledged that governments lack answers to core questions about AI's effects on youth, education, and employment speed.
- Microsoft and AWS are building major data centers in Greece with public support, contrasting with resistance elsewhere.
- The PM proposed Athens as an ideal place for philosophers, scientists, and technologists to debate what AI's existence means for human society.
When Kyriakos Mitsotakis arrived in San Francisco on Monday night, he came with the pitch of someone selling an emerging market’s comeback story. The Greek Prime Minister spoke to roughly 250 founders, investors, and operators at an Endeavor Greece event, walking them through the numbers that make his country’s recovery improbable: a 10-year bond yield of around 4.3 percent, compared to roughly 5 percent for U.S. Treasuries. That would have seemed impossible not long ago, when Greek yields hit 40 percent in 2012 during the debt crisis.
But Mitsotakis—who holds a Stanford master’s degree and described the Bay Area visit as “a homecoming”—did something unusual for a head of state on a trade mission. He admitted openly that he lacks answers to many of the questions about AI that keep world leaders awake at night.
His trip combined commerce with reconnaissance. That morning, before the event, he had toured Tesla and Sequoia Capital, and he planned to head to New York this week for the U.N. General Assembly. Yet the real goal was understanding how Silicon Valley thinks about the technology his country could either embrace or be left behind by.
Economic recovery and tech incentives
From crisis to credibility
Greece has spent the last several years rebuilding its fiscal reputation. The country is paying down its debt at a record pace. Markets now treat Greece differently than they did during the debt crisis. Greece was set to regain developed market status from MSCI, the influential index provider, next year—a formal recognition that the country had moved past crisis conditions.
Policy overhauls for tech talent
To attract tech talent and companies, Mitsotakis outlined a suite of policy changes. Greece has reformed how stock options are taxed, loosened labor laws, and offers returning Greeks tax breaks that can last up to seven years. The country is also expanding its visa programs, though Mitsotakis acknowledged that government processing speed remains a weakness.
He noted separately that Greece’s public universities have undergone a transformation. They had long embraced what he called a “radical leftist approach,” regarding corporations with suspicion, but now they are generating startups.
Reversing the talent drain
His larger goal is to win back the talent that left during the debt crisis, when younger Greeks departed because economic options simply did not exist domestically. With American work visas becoming harder to obtain, he argued, founders should consider building their teams in Greece instead.
Digital infrastructure and the supercomputer
Much of Greece’s approach to modernization centers on how it has spent the roughly 36 billion euros it received from the EU’s post-COVID recovery fund. Mitsotakis highlighted two concrete projects that capture the country’s digital ambitions.
The first is procedural: an online portal that allows Greeks to handle government paperwork without visiting offices. The portal exemplifies what Mitsotakis sees as a shift toward digital infrastructure as a foundation for attracting tech investment.
The second is more ambitious. Working with Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Greece has assembled a new supercomputer in Lavrio, a port town. The system is expected to come online within months and will power AI and scientific research across the country. This infrastructure investment signals that Greece intends to become more than a location for tech companies; it aims to be a place where AI development and research actually happen.
Data centers and the electricity question
When the conversation turned to data center investment, Mitsotakis offered an observation that sets Greece apart. While opposition to data centers is growing globally because of their demands for electricity and water, he said Greece “have not had any significant reaction” to proposals for such facilities.
Microsoft is building a cluster of data centers near Athens. AWS recently announced a deal with Greece’s largest utility to construct the country’s largest data center in a former coal region. In both cases, the projects are being welcomed by the public and local communities, a contrast to the resistance data centers face in other parts of Europe and North America.
The candid reckoning with AI’s social impact
Social media bans and digital companions
Greece is instituting a ban on social media for children under 15, set to begin in January. Many countries are weighing or adopting similar restrictions. But Mitsotakis suggested the ban may already be obsolete. “Sometimes I feel that we’re already fighting yesterday’s battle,” he said, citing the seemingly addictive properties of AI chatbots. “What does it mean for our kids to grow up with digital companions or boyfriends or girlfriends?”
Education and the learning problem
On education, Greece ran a pilot program with OpenAI aimed at reducing teachers’ administrative burden. Mitsotakis sees value in personalized AI tutors, but he warned against displacing the foundational work of learning. Students are already using chatbots to complete their homework, he noted, adding: “complacency is a human trait.”
Job displacement without preparation
Job displacement presented another area where Mitsotakis eschewed false confidence. “It is something which is going to happen,” he said, “and no government and no society is prepared for the speed with which it will happen.”
On AI development and oversight
Mitsotakis sided with the leaders of frontier AI labs who have called for slower development. His reasoning was direct: if the people building the models themselves say they do not fully understand how the systems improve themselves, governments must listen. “If the people who are building the models are telling us, ‘We’re not really sure exactly what’s happening with these models,’” he said, “we need to listen to them.”
He expects that some form of smart regulation will emerge and that the United States will largely determine its shape. Greece, he suggested, would be ready to host the conversation.
Athens as a place to reckon with AI’s meaning
Mitsotakis framed the fundamental question in philosophical terms. Humanity has created “a form of intelligence that is very quickly exceeding the capacity of the most advanced organ that evolution has ever created,” he said, raising the question of what it means to remain human in that context.
He proposed that bringing together technologists with social scientists, philosophers, and historians could produce insight that Silicon Valley alone cannot generate. Athens, he noted, is where Socrates once engaged his fellow citizens in the agora about the nature of a good life and a just society. The implication was that the questions tech leaders are still debating might find their answers there.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Mitsotakis's position on AI development speed?
He sided with frontier AI lab leaders calling for slower development, arguing that if the people building the models themselves are unsure how they improve, governments must listen to their concerns.
What ban is Greece implementing for children?
Greece is banning social media for children under 15 starting in January, though Mitsotakis suggested the measure may already be outdated given the addictive nature of AI chatbots.
Which tech companies are investing in Greek data centers?
Microsoft is building a cluster of data centers near Athens, and AWS announced a deal with Greece's largest utility to build the country's largest data center in a former coal region.
