Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis arrived in San Francisco this week with a familiar objective for a head of government on a trade mission: pitch his country to investors, founders and companies deciding where to place their next bet.

But at an event hosted by Endeavor Greece, the global nonprofit that backs entrepreneurs in emerging and growth markets, Mitsotakis did something less typical. Speaking before roughly 250 founders, investors and operators, he said plainly that on artificial intelligence, he does not have all the answers — and that few leaders do.

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The candor reflected the tone of a trip that was part sales tour, part listening exercise. Mitsotakis spent the morning visiting Tesla and Sequoia Capital, among other stops, before heading to the U.N. General Assembly in New York later in the week. He also used the visit to make a case for Greece as a destination for international talent and capital, particularly as the country prepares to regain developed market status from MSCI next year.

A Country Recasting Its Economic Narrative

“I think it’s another indication that the economy is doing well and that Greece is no longer treated as a special case,” Mitsotakis said.

The prime minister, who earned a master’s degree at Stanford and described the trip as a homecoming, leaned heavily on Greece’s economic turnaround. He pointed to the country’s rapid debt repayment and noted, somewhat provocatively, that Greece now borrows more cheaply than the United States.

That comparison is not exact. Eurozone interest rates remain lower than U.S. rates, which helps explain part of the gap. Still, the figures are striking: Greece’s 10-year bond yield is around 4.3%, compared with roughly 5% for U.S. Treasuries. That would have been unthinkable during the debt crisis, when Greek yields surged above 40% in 2012.

From Crisis Management To Digital State Building

Mitsotakis also framed Greece’s recovery in terms of how it has spent public money. Much of the roughly €36 billion the country received from the European Union’s post-COVID recovery fund, he said, has gone into digital infrastructure.

Among the examples he cited were an online government portal designed to reduce paperwork and waiting lines, and a new supercomputer in Lavrio, developed with Hewlett Packard Enterprise, that he said will begin operations within months to support AI and scientific research.

He also highlighted policy changes aimed at making Greece more attractive to startups and global employers. Those include reforms to stock-option taxation, looser labor rules and tax incentives for Greeks returning home, with lower rates available for up to seven years.

During the conversation, he also discussed Greece’s expanding visa programs, though he acknowledged the government still has work to do on processing speed. And he volunteered a point that underscored how much the country’s innovation ecosystem has changed: Greek public universities, once associated in his telling with a “radical leftist approach” skeptical of corporations, are now producing startups.

A Bid To Reverse The Brain Drain

At the heart of Mitsotakis’s pitch is a broader strategic goal: bring back the talent Greece lost during the debt crisis, when many younger citizens left in search of opportunity elsewhere.

He also sees a window created by tightening U.S. work visa rules. In that environment, he suggested, more founders and companies may find it easier to build teams in Greece.

For tech executives evaluating geography through the lens of talent, cost and policy flexibility, that argument carries weight. Greece is no longer presenting itself merely as a lower-cost European outpost. It is positioning itself as a modern operating base with improving infrastructure and a government eager to court innovation.

On Ai, Mitsotakis Says The Questions Are Moving Faster Than The Policy

The conversation became more serious when it turned to artificial intelligence and its social consequences. Mitsotakis was notably open about the limits of current policymaking.

Greece is preparing to ban social media use for children under 15 starting in January, in line with measures being debated or adopted in other countries. But he suggested that even that step may already be lagging behind the pace of technological change.

“Sometimes I feel that we’re already fighting yesterday’s battle,” he said. “What does it mean for our kids to grow up with digital companions or boyfriends or girlfriends?”

He was equally measured on AI in education. Greece has run a pilot program with OpenAI aimed at reducing teachers’ administrative burden, and Mitsotakis said he sees promise in personalized AI tutors. But he warned that such tools cannot come at the expense of mastering fundamentals.

“The hard work of learning the basic skills” still matters, he said, adding that students are already using chatbots to complete assignments. “Complacency is a human trait.”

Greece Bets On Ai Infrastructure

On infrastructure, Mitsotakis presented Greece as something of an outlier. While data center development is facing backlash in many countries over power and water consumption, he said Greece has seen little resistance.

He pointed to Microsoft’s data center buildout near Athens and AWS’s recent agreement with Greece’s largest utility to develop what would become the country’s biggest data center in a former coal region. In his telling, those projects are not politically difficult; they are welcomed.

That stance reflects a broader bet that Greece can become a relevant node in Europe’s digital economy by pairing available land, improving connectivity and policy support with a friendlier investment climate than some larger markets.

Regulation May Be Inevitable

What stood out most was not that Mitsotakis tried to sound certain on AI — it was that he refused to fake certainty.

He acknowledged that job displacement is coming and said bluntly that no government or society is prepared for how quickly it may arrive.

On whether AI development should slow down, he aligned himself with some of the frontier lab leaders calling for caution. If the builders themselves admit they do not fully understand how these systems improve themselves, he said, policymakers should listen.

“Smart regulation” is inevitable, he said, and the United States will largely shape its contours. Greece, however, would be happy to host the conversation.

Athens As A Venue For The Next Big Debate

Mitsotakis closed on a philosophical note, arguing that humanity has created “a form of intelligence that is very quickly exceeding the capacity of the most advanced organ that evolution has ever created.”

That, he suggested, raises questions that go beyond engineering and policy. It requires bringing technologists together with social scientists, philosophers and historians.

“I cannot think of a better place to really have these discussions,” he said.

He may have a point. Athens was once the site of Socrates’ relentless questioning in the agora, where the city debated what makes for a good life and a just society. As Silicon Valley wrestles with the implications of AI, Mitsotakis is betting that Greece can be more than a recipient of capital and talent. It can also be a place where the world’s hardest questions are asked.