Thank you Prime Minister. Let me begin by thanking you for hosting this very important summit and for placing India and the Global South at the very centre of this global AI conversation. The framing of this gathering that you chose around “People, Progress, and Planet” captures that artificial intelligence is not only a profound, massive technological shift, but also a civilisational one. The choices that we make today will determine whether AI expands opportunity or whether it deepens divides.
Allow me to briefly offer three reflections. First, as many of you stated, the AI dividend must be broadly shared. Every technological revolution in the history of the world has created immense wealth. But history teaches us that the distribution of that wealth is never automatic. AI has the potential to unlock unprecedented scientific discovery, to dramatically improve health care, to strengthen education and to support climate resilience.
But the question before us is simple. Who benefits apart from the big tech companies and their shareholders? Within our countries, governments must ensure that workers are reskilled, small businesses have access to AI tools, public services are upgraded, the farmer, the nurse, the teacher, the small entrepreneur must feel the dividend of this technology in tangible ways. And concerns about significant labour displacement are legitimate and need to be addressed sooner rather than later.
In Greece, we’re moving in that direction as digitization has made public services much more accessible. The incorporation of AI in education will help narrow the learning divide, while advances in telemedicine, in predictive analytics, in personalised preventive care, make healthcare much more proactive, shifting it from treatment in hospitals, to prevention at home, and improving the quality of life for all citizens.
Among countries, we must avoid a world where access to computers, to data and talent is concentrated in only a few geographies. AI cannot be a story of digital concentration. It must be a story of digital inclusion.
My second observation, the state itself must improve. Technology is advancing at extraordinary speeds, but too often our public institutions are operating on an outdated operating system and rules. If we want AI to serve society, governments must significantly update their own software. Public procurement frameworks designed for the industrial age are not fit for the AI age, and we need them to be faster, outcome-oriented, and more open to startups and innovators. Public administrations must invest in their own capacity, digital talent, data infrastructure, and AI literacy across ministries.
This is not just about running a few pilots. We must move from experimentation to implementation at scale, as you have done, Prime Minister Modi, very successfully in India. The countries that succeed in AI will not simply be those that built powerful models, but those that built capable states.
To that end, we must choose our regulatory priorities wisely. For Greece and for me personally, protecting minors from digital addiction and online harm is a matter of intergenerational solidarity, and a top priority for my government. I’m happy to see that many other countries are moving in that direction, and Greece will very soon announce its own decision when it comes to banning access to minors and adolescents to social media.
But this goes hand in hand with our democratic responsibility to ensure, as the Prime Minister of Croatia mentioned, that technology strengthens a public square rather than overwhelms us with disinformation and hate. I’m all in favour of extensive dialogue with the big technology companies, but we need to be aware that if that dialogue does not produce concrete results, regulation will be the only answer.
Finally, AI’s geopolitical impact should tilt towards conversion. AI is not just about code and compute, it’s part of national power and interdependencies are embedded in the AI stack, from semiconductors to cloud infrastructure, from data sets to research collaboration. And no country can build this alone. And that is why trusted partnerships matter.
In Greece, we have built partnerships with all major hyperscalers while at the same time developing sovereign capabilities through EU-supported AI factories and initiatives, led by national champions, attracting investment from across the globe.
And balance is essential. A world in which technology is weaponized to coerce its trusted partners, or where excessive regulation becomes a tool to suppress innovation is a world where collective innovation declines. If we fragment the AI ecosystem into very rigid blocks, we reduce the gains for all. If we leverage interdependence responsibly, we expand opportunity for all.
Ladies and gentlemen, if we ensure that the AI dividend is shared, if we modernise the state to match the technology, and if we build trusted partnerships that expand rather than fragment innovation, then AI can truly serve people, drive progress, and protect our planet.
And as I was listening to the Prime Minister of India, I thought that it is a fusion of artificial intelligence and ancestral intelligence, whether it’s present in ancient Sanskrit texts or the writings of Greek philosophers that will eventually guide us towards a more prosperous and just future. This is a message that Greece wants to send to the world, and I hope that it’s one that resonates with you. Thank you.
