Greece’s high-profile minister of state and digital governance, Kyriakos Pierrakakis, on Tuesday detailed a very significant – by Greek standards – Microsoft investment in the country, a day after the project was unveiled at the Acropolis Museum by no less than the Greek premier and the tech giant’s president.
In comments on a couple of radio programs, Pierrakakis said the investment involves the creation and basing of a Microsoft data center, the eighth by the US company in Europe and its first in SE Europe. The possibility, in fact, calls for the creation of three such units.
Figures thrown around by the Mitsotakis government over the past week ranged from 400 million euros to up to one billion euros in added value over the long-term. Nevertheless, the development was viewed as a very desirable fillip for a center-right Greek government that bills itself as solidly pro-market and pro-business, and as diametrically opposite its radical leftist predecessor in power, SYRIZA.
“We unofficially competed with other regional countries, as this infrastructure involves the wider region,” he said, adding that companies such as Microsoft always assess the political risks of a country in which they invest in, as well as future prospects, “and this means something (positive) to us”.
Pierrakakis also maintained that the 5G telecoms network will debut in Greece in the early part of 2021, with a recently passed law creating an investment fund used as an investment vehicle in company that will utilize 5G technology.
