Latvia has great potential in the area of artificial intelligence (AI). This was declared by the vice president of Latvian Mobile Telephone (LMT), Ingmārs Pukis, on Thursday at a conference titled “Digital Transformation in Public Administration and Involvement of Universities in its Implementation.”
Pukis said that LMT already works with artificial intelligence and very much hopes for the involvement of public administration. The company rep said that AI is high on the agenda for Latvia’s president, the Economics Ministry and the Ministry of Smart Administration and Regional Development.
“We know that this is quite an aggressive tradition, and public administration loves digitalisation,” explained Pukis. “I believe that Latvia has great potential here, because Europe does not look good in this regard. It is conservative and overregulated. If Latvia could regulate this a bit less and start with itself and its digital infrastructure, then we in the industry are prepared to add money to the building of practical applications, just as was the case with 5G.”
The LMT official added that Latvia’s digital infrastructure at this time is “highly prepared” to introduce new AI-based solutions.
Pukis went on to say that the 2024 Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) presented Latvia as a European leader in providing public access to digital services.
He added, however, that “exporting IT companies and the government are buying up all of the available IT resources in Latvia, which means that small or medium-sized companies are left with practically nothing. On the one hand, that seems ridiculous, but on the other hand, it is worth thinking about sometimes. I feel a bit sorry about the situation, but something needs to be done about it.”
Pukis also talked about workers in the ICT field, arguing that the tradition has been to “produce executors. We have many ‘bio-robots’ who are paid huge salaries as IT specialists, but who do not produce much in added value,” he said.
Source: BNS
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