Palkovics said the cabinet was set to discuss the modified strategy in days.

Results from a survey of the sectors and players in Hungary involved with AI, coordinated by the AI Coalition, show "we're more advanced than we earlier thought", he added.

Hungary, with data wealth, computing capacity, the appropriate legal environment and a pool of creative professionals, is well positioned for the broader adoption of AI, Palkovics said. He acknowledged the success of Hungary's earlier AI strategy but said the updated version took into account the changed legal environment with the EU's AI Act.

He said the regulatory conditions were in place for the structured and innovative use of national data assets, but the task would be to ensure rapid and cheap access to that data for research, public welfare or business purposes.

Gabor Denes University is working on educational materials on AI, and Eotvos Lorand University (ELTE) is drafting recommendations on the use of AI in education, Palkovics said.

The operator of the ZalaZONE Automotive Proving Ground, Gabor Denes University and the Gabor Denes University Artificial Intelligence Knowledge Centre signed a cooperation agreement at the event in Zalaegerszeg (W Hungary).

Palkovics: Hungary's updated AI strategy soon completed

The ministry for national economy will soon submit to the government Hungary's updated strategy for artificial intelligence, the ministry commissioner for AI said on Thursday.

Laszlo Palkovics told a conference on the use of AI in the service of society and the economy that AI could be put to good use in state administration, public services, transport, taxation, finance, health care and even personal competence development.

Technological AI applications could help create a test environment for autonomous vehicles in driverless systems, he said. Based on the car industry, the production of humanoid robots could start soon, and AI would also play an important role in the defence sector and the development of intelligent defence systems, he added.

The third important area will be business applications, with huge opportunities for AI-optimised production, with logistics based on AI resulting in more efficient supply chains. SMEs must also be encouraged to develop in this area because they lag behind, he added.

The head of the Competition Office urged more cooperation in harnessing the potential of AI. Csaba Balazs Rigo said he also considered it important to improve the preparedness of small businesses because experience currently suggested that technological development was mostly to the advantage of large global companies.

He said the competition office had an important role in protecting consumers' interests and opportunities for small companies to reach their markets. He said the use of AI could improve their competitiveness, and developing self-teaching systems based on minor languages could also be important in the areas of data sovereignty, data security, and preserving cultural identity.

He said that thanks to a recently completed procedure in competition matters, Microsoft has agreed to teach AI-based systems with a dataset of 10 billion words in Hungarian. Rigo said he expected that this would improve Hungarian consumers' experience and make it easier to integrate technology in business operations.

Govt AI commissioner meets with competition watchdog head

Csaba Balazs Rigo, the head of Hungary's Competition Office (GVH) has met with Laszlo Palkovics, the government commissioner for artificial intelligence, to discuss how the watchdog can support the implementation of the new national AI strategy.

In a press release on Thursday, GVH said Rigo highlighted a recent commitment by Microsoft, taken after a procedure launched by the watchdog, to use 10 billion Hungarian words to develop its own AI-based systems and make the data available to other developers free of charge.

He said GVH was committed to preserving and promoting the Hungarian language and protecting the national interests of Hungarian culture in the digital space. He added that developing AI-based Hungarian language models was a "matter of national sovereignty".

Palkovics said the Microsoft pledge clinched by GVH would play a key role in the transparent use of AI and other new technologies in Hungary, while ensuring tech multinationals take into consideration support for the local community alongside their business interests.

The sides discussed in detail the new national AI strategy, which, Rigo said, dovetailed with a number of recommendations made by GVH's experts.

A broad market analysis conducted by GVH in 2024 showed adopting AI could boost Hungarian businesses' competitiveness, while pointing to the absence in big tech companies' business strategies of rolling out products tailored to the Hungarian market.

The targeted development of self-learning AI systems based on small languages, such as Hungarian, is a matter of priority importance in terms of data sovereignty, data security and the preservation of cultural identity, it added.

Source: MTI – Hungary’s national news agency since 1881. While MTI articles are usually factual, some may contain political bias, and readers should be aware that such content does not reflect the position of XpatLoop, which is neutral and independent.

Since the goal of XpatLoop is to keep readers well briefed, right across the spectrum of opinions, MTI items are shared to ensure readers are aware of all narratives within the local media.

XpatLoop believes in empowering readers to form their own views through complete and comprehensive coverage. To facilitate this XpatLoop has a balanced range of news partners, as you can see when you surf around XpatLoop.com

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