Prime Minister Golob: "We want every Slovenian to have free access to artificial intelligence tools"
As part of his Government visit to the Goriška region, Prime Minister Robert Golob also visited the Primorska Technology Park in Šempeter pri Gorici | Author Danijel Novakovč/STA
Prime Minister Golob said that the first national call for tenders for generative artificial intelligence (AI) had been published today on the European public procurement portal. This is an important step towards the development of advanced technologies in the Slovenian language in a safe, responsible and transparent manner.
"Our aim with this call for tenders is to ensure that every Slovenian – no matter in what capacity, as an individual, as a company or public sector employee, as a researcher or simply as a curious user – has free access to AI tools. To ensure this access is secure based on all the criteria set by the European Union. To make data available only to the user, so that third-party providers cannot access it and exploit it for their own training purposes, but remain available only to their owner," said Prime Minister Golob.
"Slovenia wants to be among the first – no country has signed such an agreement yet." The Prime Minister went on to emphasise that Slovenia has already entered the pre-negotiation phase with some of the world's largest providers of these services. "We expect to reach an agreement with one of them in the coming months. Several tools are available, but we want to remain technologically neutral. We want to offer a platform for data on which to run AI, and for everyone to have access to this platform for free," he added.
The Prime Minister also took the opportunity to congratulate the team of the Primorska Technology Park, which received the European Commission's POPRI project award. "And we would also like to ensure that the curiosity young people show for entrepreneurship, which is evident in this project, is further enhanced through access to the most advanced tools and platforms of interactive intelligence," he said. He added that he believed young people will thus be able to satisfy their curiosity and develop new ideas even faster – entrepreneurial and otherwise. "In this way, we will enable them to gain an advantage over their peers around the world. We want access to these tools in Slovenia to be swift, and above all, for young people here to be among the first in the world to have them," he added.
The entire call for tenders also enables companies – both small and large – as well as the public sector, schools, research institutions and even individuals at home to make use of these tools and make their lives easier. "I am very proud of this project. For now, we are among the first; no other country has yet signed such an agreement. It is possible that someone may overtake us in the negotiations in the coming months, but we want to be very thorough about what we sign. This is a highly sensitive area in terms of data protection, and we want to protect ourselves as much as possible," said the Prime Minister. He added that Slovenia could have been the first if it had wanted to. "Data protection is more important to us, which is why we have taken an extra month or so in the negotiations to finalise everything properly."
Link to the call for tenders published on the Slovenian public procurement portal.
Link to the call for tenders published on the European public procurement portal.