Slovenia's AI Adoption Accelerates with New Initiatives

The development of artificial intelligence (AI) in Slovenia has been experiencing a remarkable surge in recent years, impacting business models, job markets, and competitiveness of companies. This trend was highlighted at an event organized by the Slovenian State Holding (SDH) in collaboration with Delo Media and the Jožef Stefan Institute. Branko Bračko, SDH’s CEO, emphasized the importance of digital transformation, innovation, and responsible AI use in business operations. He noted that companies are expected to integrate AI into their processes, with user trust being equally or even more crucial than technological advancements.

Marko Grobelnik, a leading AI researcher at the Jožef Stefan Institute, pointed out that AI is experiencing exponential growth, with companies like Anthropic reaching $65 billion in revenue in just a few years. He presented a 11-layer framework for AI adoption and use, including rare earth elements, energy, GPUs, data centers, data, algorithms, models, model environments, agents, applications, and physical AI. Grobelnik explained the AI ecosystem and Slovenia’s position within it, highlighting the importance of adding value and generating revenue through applications.

The event also featured presentations from various experts, including Iz. prof. dr. Slavko Žitnik, who discussed the development of the Slovenian AI Factory, a project aimed at creating a self-sufficient European AI ecosystem. The factory has already developed several AI models in areas such as machine vision and smart production, and has conducted 98 training sessions. Žitnik emphasized the need for Slovenia to have its own AI factory, with 19 such facilities already existing in Europe.