Prime Minister attends the presentation of the first artificial intelligence platform

Economies will develop in a competition of those using AI-based platforms and those that do not, Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov said on January 15 at the presentation of the first artificial intelligence platform BgGPT, which will be open to organisations to create applications, programmes, etc. The project was developed by the Institute for Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence and Technology, INSAIT, which is structured as a special unit of Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”.

"What we have seen in the recent months is that the competition for AI models is developing in the most advanced countries in the world. And just as countries were once divided into those with electricity and computers and those without, in a few years economies will be divided into those using and those not using artificial intelligence. Success will lie in the extent to which we integrate these platforms," Denkov said.

The platform can currently answer questions and create short text. The development is a collaboration with the ETH Zurich.

According to the Prime Minister, such technologies inevitably create anxiety:

"There are also fears of how many jobs will be lost to AI. We know well about arguments about whether or not to use cars. If you go back, history knows many such cases. We are literally on a race track where the future of a nation and a country will depend on how quickly it can absorb these technologies."

He thanked Sofia University for giving the country its own platform to develop:

"Having own technology is a huge advantage. Firstly, Bulgaria has realised since 2020 that this is strategically important and started preparing the possibility of realising this project. It started in April 2022. There was continuity.

This continuity is expressed both in funding and in realising how important it is for the development of the country. The second part, a personal credit to Martin Vechev - without him we would not be here today. We would have been thinking whether to buy from Switzerland or the UK. We owe him gratitude for deciding to dedicate his life to the development of these technologies.

Thirdly, we are grateful to our partners in Switzerland. So we have to thank Zurich, the Polytechnic of Lausanne and the Swiss government that they became our partners in a risky process, a project that may or may not happen. But I can say that in speed and results it exceeds our most positive expectations.

I congratulate them for deciding to introduce the topic in steps. There is a very famous thought by a science fiction writer, Arthur C. Clarke, that “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

Artificial intelligence is created by human intelligence. Any “magic” of this kind is done by humans. It's good to see humans doing it. And to realize that our lives in 1-3 years develop these technologies. Such events happen once every few dozen years."

The platform will be launched on March 3.