Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis used a visit to San Francisco to make two arguments at once: Greece is open for technology investment, and political leaders are not ready for the social consequences of rapidly advancing AI.
Speaking before roughly 250 founders, investors and operators at an event hosted by Endeavor Greece, Mitsotakis described the trip partly as a fact-finding mission. His itinerary included Tesla and Sequoia Capital before a planned visit to the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Yet his most striking comments concerned the questions his government cannot answer.
Greece Pitches Its Digital Rebound
Mitsotakis presented Greece as a country that has moved beyond its debt-crisis reputation. He pointed to MSCI’s plan to restore the country to developed-market status next year and said Greece is paying down debt at a record pace. He also noted that Greece currently borrows more cheaply than the United States.
TechCrunch cautioned that the comparison is imperfect because interest rates are lower across the eurozone. The report placed Greece’s 10-year bond yield at about 4.3 percent, compared with roughly 5 percent for US Treasuries. The contrast remains dramatic beside 2012, when Greek yields exceeded 40 percent.
The government has directed much of the roughly €36 billion it received from the European Union’s post-Covid recovery fund toward digital infrastructure, Mitsotakis said. That work includes an online portal for government paperwork and a Hewlett Packard Enterprise-assisted supercomputer in Lavrio. He expects the machine to come online within months for AI and scientific research.
Mitsotakis also cited changes to stock-option taxation, looser labor rules and tax incentives for Greeks who return home. He acknowledged that visa processing still needs improvement. His broader pitch is that Greece can reclaim talent lost during the debt crisis while attracting founders who face greater difficulty obtaining American work visas.
AI Policy Is Already Chasing the Past
The tone shifted when the discussion turned from investment to AI’s effects on society. Greece plans to ban social media for children under 15 beginning in January, but Mitsotakis questioned whether that policy already targets yesterday’s problem. AI companions, including simulated partners, may create a more immediate challenge for children.
Education brings the same tension. Greece has tested an OpenAI program intended to reduce teachers’ administrative work, and Mitsotakis sees potential in personalized tutoring. He warned, however, that assistance cannot replace the effort required to learn basic skills. Students are already using chatbots to complete homework, he said, making human complacency part of the policy problem.
His comments were not a finished government program. They were an admission that familiar controls for social media and classrooms may not map neatly onto systems that converse, persuade and act. That uncertainty is important because the government is simultaneously encouraging deeper AI adoption.
Infrastructure Growth Meets Calls for Restraint
Greece is also seeking data center investment. Mitsotakis said the country has not experienced the significant public opposition seen elsewhere over electricity and water use. Microsoft is building a data center cluster near Athens, while AWS has announced a project with Greece’s largest utility in a former coal region.
The prime minister was less confident about the labor impact. Job displacement will happen, he said, and neither governments nor societies are prepared for its speed. He sided with frontier-lab leaders who have called for slower AI development, arguing that warnings from model builders about systems they do not fully understand deserve attention.
Mitsotakis expects some form of smart regulation and believes the United States will largely determine its shape. He offered Greece as a place where technologists could debate the future with social scientists, philosophers and historians.
The resulting position is deliberately unresolved. Greece wants AI infrastructure, investment and productivity gains while its leader openly supports caution about the technology’s pace. That is not a completed policy framework, but it is a clearer description of the political dilemma than confident promises that adoption and governance will advance together.
