Greek Prime Minister Mitsotakis announces social media ban for minors

Greece PM Announces Social Media Ban for Minors

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced on Tuesday Greece is legislating a nationwide ban on social media access for children under fifteen. He also spoke at an Endeavor Greece event in San Francisco with the TechCrunch Managing Director and Editor-in-Chief Connie Loizos.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said that sometimes I feel that we are already fighting yesterday's battle in Europe regarding artificial intelligence. He also said Greece has an AI strategy and intends to develop expertise in healthcare, education, civil protection, and defense.

Mitsotakis said AI regulation is always inevitable and difficult, and the race is for two between the United States and China. He also said the United States as a democracy has the obligation to lead on smart regulation of artificial intelligence.

He also predicted artificial intelligence will likely be a very major national political topic in the upcoming 2028 American presidential general elections, which are two years away.

Greek PM Meets Tech Leaders in Silicon Valley

On Monday, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis visited the headquarters of Nvidia and Sequoia Capital in California's famous high-tech Silicon Valley. He also held meetings with senior company executives and leading technology researchers to discuss major digital infrastructure investments in Greece.

At Nvidia, he then also met John Josephakis, Global Vice President of Sales and Business Development for HPC and Supercomputing, and other leading senior company executives.

At Sequoia Capital, partners Konstantine Buhler and Doug Leone also hosted a meeting with leading investors and top technology researchers. The meeting included founders and executives of companies at the forefront of AI applications in medicine, education, automation, and robotics.

He then also toured Tesla's headquarters and advanced laboratories in Palo Alto, where he met Konstantinos Laskaris, Vice President and Director of the Optimus robotics program.

Mitsotakis said Microsoft is building a cluster of data centers in Athens and AWS announced a very big deal for the biggest data center in Greece.

Greek PM to Address UN General Assembly in New York

Mitsotakis' United States trip moves from Silicon Valley to New York for the 81st session of the UN General Assembly. He will also speak at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and then meet the San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie.

The UN General Assembly's annual leaders' general debate runs from September 22 to 28 of this year in New York. This year's official theme is stated as the "Better Together: 80 Years and More for Peace, Development and Human Rights."

The United Nations agenda also includes major wars, global security, the climate crisis, sustainable development, technological change, and also the key governance of artificial intelligence issues.

No meeting has been scheduled between Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan so far this year. Mitsotakis has said the waters are once again turbulent, and unlike the period of detente after the earthquakes in Turkey.

Mitsotakis said Greece's economy is growing much faster than the eurozone average and is now also borrowing at a significantly lower rate than the United States.