site.btaVP Iotova: Idea of Building Gigafactories Can Unite Bulgarians, Benefit the Country

Vice President Iliana Iotova, who spoke at a roundtable on the prospects for attracting high-tech investments to Bulgaria here on Monday, said that the gigafactories project can become a big national idea that can have all Bulgarians united, since it has the potential to benefit the country tremendously. The forum entitled "Bulgaria and the Fifth Industrial Revolution. Opportunities to attract strategic investors to build artificial intelligence factories and data centres" is hosted by President Rumen Radev.

Iotova said: "The project of creating a gigafactory to guide the Bulgarian economy not just for the development of artificial intelligence but putting it within certain limits, so that it works for man and not against man, is a very big ambition that as a society we need to achieve."

She stated that Bulgaria should become one a leading country in terms of AI, so that it could determine the directions and frameworks of the next policies. Iotova noted that one of the EU's biggest lags in recent years has been in high technology. Europe creates more regulations than it creates business and manufacturing. Businesses everywhere in the EU feel squeezed by them, by high prices and by the lack of investment for development, the Iotova said.

She reported that the European Commission (EC) has earmarked EUR 485 billion for six new gigafactories announced in February 2025. Each of these projects will contribute to strengthening the artificial intelligence ecosystem at the European level while meeting the needs of each member state, Iotova said.

The Vice President said that while it would be difficult for the EU to catch up with the US and China in building AI infrastructure, Europe should still take its own development path. Iotova welcomed the practical measures the EC is envisaging to take in order to allocate these funds. She added that Europe is still ahead of the US in training young people, the IT professionals, which the EU estimates at around 200,000.