{"id":20933,"date":"2025-10-20T13:30:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T10:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grnet.gr\/?p=20933"},"modified":"2025-10-20T14:11:32","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T11:11:32","slug":"pharos-ai-factory-at-the-athens-democracy-forum-2025-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/grnet.gr\/en\/2025\/10\/20\/pharos-ai-factory-at-the-athens-democracy-forum-2025-2\/","title":{"rendered":"PHAROS AI Factory at the Athens Democracy Forum 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>Stefanos Kollias<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, Chairman of GRNET, Professor Emeritus at the National Technical University of Athens and Coordinator of <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pharos-aifactory.eu\/about\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">PHAROS, the Greek AI Factory<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">participated in the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.athensdemocracyforum.com\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Athens Democracy Forum 2025<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, held from <\/span><b>30 September to 3 October 2025<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Organized by the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.democracyculturefoundation.org\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Democracy &amp; Culture Foundation<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, in association with <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/international\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The New York Times<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, the Athens Democracy Forum is an annual international event that brings together leaders from academia, politics, business, and civil society to discuss the evolving role of democracy in addressing global challenges. This year\u2019s edition, held in the Greek capital, featured a series of AI-focused sessions, gathering global experts to explore the intersection of technology, ethics, and democratic governance.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Professor Kollias engaged in sessions dedicated to Artificial Intelligence, contributing to discussions on the ethical, political, and infrastructural dimensions of AI. Focusing on the intersection of AI and ethics, he participated i<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">n the lively \u201c<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">New York Times\u2013Style Debate: Aristotle and AI<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">,\u201d held on Tuesday, September 30, 2025, as a juror alongside Despina Spanou and Lex Paulson, exploring whether the ethical framework developed by the Greek philosopher Aristotle offers a compelling approach to addressing the challenges and opportunities of Artificial Intelligence today.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The following day, Wednesday, October 1, 2025, S. Kollias joined the panel discussion <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cHope and Reality for the Flagship Programs of the Blueprint\u201d<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> alongside Marios Dafnomilis, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Adviser for Strategic Foresight at the Presidency of the Hellenic Government<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. The discussion took place within the session <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cA.I. Factories: Infrastructure, Politics and Responsibility<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201d and explored the progress and challenges of Greece\u2019s national flagship programs under the digital transformation blueprint. Professor. Kollias highlighted PHAROS as a key initiative demonstrating how large-scale A.I. infrastructure can translate strategic national priorities into technological leadership and societal impact.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Prof. S. Kollias also took part in the session \u201c<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A.I. Factories: Scaling, Alignment, Infrastructure\u201d<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> held on the same day, contributing insights on how A.I. factories can produce scalable systems that remain aligned with human values and societal needs.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In this context, he <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">delivered a presentation on <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201c<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">PHAROS: The Greek AI Factory Project<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201d, outlining its mission to provide advanced infrastructure, data, and collaboration opportunities that enable scalable, trustworthy, and human-centered A.I. innovation in Greece and across Europe. The presentation highlighted PHAROS as a key national initiative, designed to unify infrastructure, data, and expertise to drive responsible and human-centered A.I. development. Emphasis was placed on interconnecting academia, industry, and the public sector, fostering an ecosystem that supports data-driven decision-making, ethical governance, and technological sovereignty within the European A.I. landscape.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">His contributions reflected GRNET\u2019s and PHAROS AI Factory\u2019s shared commitment to advancing trustworthy, human-centered, and sustainable AI innovation in Europe.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For more <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">information about the Athens Democracy Forum 2025, including the full program and the list of sessions, <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">visit its official website<\/span> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.athensdemocracyforum.com\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">here<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-20917 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/grnet.gr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Democracy-Forum-pic-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"512\" height=\"342\" srcset=\"https:\/\/grnet.gr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Democracy-Forum-pic-1.jpg 512w, https:\/\/grnet.gr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Democracy-Forum-pic-1-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/grnet.gr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Democracy-Forum-pic-1-150x100.jpg 150w, https:\/\/grnet.gr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Democracy-Forum-pic-1-500x334.jpg 500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Stefanos Kollias, Chairman of GRNET, Professor Emeritus at the National Technical University of Athens and Coordinator of PHAROS, the Greek AI Factory, participated in the Athens Democracy Forum 2025, held from 30 September to 3 October 2025. Organized by the Democracy &amp; Culture Foundation, in association with The New York Times, the Athens Democracy Forum [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20919,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[294,355,490],"tags":[381,934,959,520,374],"class_list":["post-20933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events-en","category-news-en","category-news_en-en","tag-ai-en","tag-ai-factory-pharos","tag-aifactories","tag-daedalus","tag-hpc-en-2"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/grnet.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/grnet.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/grnet.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grnet.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grnet.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20933"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/grnet.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20933\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20934,"href":"https:\/\/grnet.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20933\/revisions\/20934"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grnet.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/grnet.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grnet.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grnet.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}