The opportunities that are burning with Artificial Intelligence

2026-02-08 11:47:00, Sociale CNA

At a time when the world is entering a new industrial race, that of Artificial Intelligence, Europe has chosen not to be left behind.

Instead, it is trying to build a real technological base. At the core of this strategy are the so-called Artificial Intelligence factories (AI factories), structures that bring together supercomputers, data centers, universities, start-ups, SMEs and financial capital to create complete AI development ecosystems.

These "factories" are not simply servers, but economic nodes where talent, infrastructure, and capital are connected to produce technology that then becomes a global economic power.

The financial ambition is as great as the technological one. The European Union has decided to mobilize up to 200 billion euros in investment in AI, of which only 20 billion euros are aimed at building 18 AI gigafactories, giant structures for training the most complex Artificial Intelligence models, and 13 so-called AI Factory Antennas (regional gateways to the European Artificial Intelligence infrastructure).

In parallel, the network of AI factories will support start-ups, industry and scientific research across the continent.

Through this move, Europe seeks to establish technological sovereignty, reduce dependence on the US and China, and build an economy where innovation is produced within the continent. In practice, this means giving SMEs and start-ups access to supercomputers, data centers, and expertise, a level of infrastructure that usually only global giants can afford.

In the European AI infrastructure network, only VEZILKA in North Macedonia and SAIFA in Serbia are included from the Western Balkans, as part of the ecosystem connected to the European infrastructure of AI factories and supercomputer capacities (AI Factory Antennas).

Albania, despite its rhetoric of ambition in Artificial Intelligence, does not appear on this map. This is not simply a matter of prestige or image, but of access to infrastructure, research funding, networks of expertise and real opportunities for businesses and start-ups that will operate in the future AI economy. And this happens at a time when strategic decisions for these networks have already been made.

In this context, the political spectacle with “Diella”, the Minister of Artificial Intelligence, seems more like an attempt to produce symbolism than to actually build capacities. Especially if seen in light of the European decisions taken in 2025 on the real architecture of investments in AI. When global infrastructure is being designed, Albania seems to be focused on image, not on building the technological base.

Now the focus seems to have shifted to new partnerships, including initiatives promoted with international partners like Israel, to build data centers. But the fundamental problem remains: without a local research ecosystem, without strong data centers, without real funding for innovation, and without organic links between universities and industry, any international collaboration risks remaining episodic, not transformative.

The biggest irony is that while Europe is investing billions to ensure that SMEs and start-ups have "technological oxygen", in Albania businesses continue to struggle for basic access to functional digital services.

Problems with systems like SelfCare or e-Albania itself are not simply technical defects. They are a symptom of the lack of a stable technological architecture and rapid investments that are resulting in numerous problems, even jeopardizing data security.

Instead of focusing on institutional marketing or awarding symbolic international awards to improve the "burnt" image of the "Sun", Albania needs something much simpler and much more difficult at the same time: a real strategy for the development of the technology and Artificial Intelligence sector.

A strategy that creates value-added jobs, keeps young people in the country, and perhaps, one day, brings back those who have left.

Artificial Intelligence is not just technology. It's economics, it's employment, it's geopolitics, and it's talent. And if a country doesn't build the terrain where talent can flourish, no matter how many conferences it holds, how it sells it as a global innovation, chances will continue to burn, just like today, and talent will continue to leave and there can be no question of their return.

And perhaps the bitterest irony is this: in an attempt to show that it is entering the era of Artificial Intelligence, Albania risks remaining a mere spectator in the era that has already begun to be built without it./ Monitor Magazine