Members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday called on the government to complete its National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence and Cloud Computing without delay, to protect the state’s critical data.
Committee chairman Giorgos Karoullas, a Democratic Rally (DISY) parliament member, said after the session that three cloud and data storage providers from outside the EU controlled more than 70 per cent of the European market. More than 80 per cent of digital infrastructure depended on providers outside the European Union, he said.
For Cyprus, a country under occupation that faces hybrid threats and has an important geographical position, this was “above all a matter of national security”, he said.
The committee supports the European Commission’s proposal, Karoullas said, and is raising three issues that the government must press the EU on. These are energy interconnections; European funding for every new obligation, since acquiring data centres and data storage involves huge costs; and equal treatment for small states.
He called on the government to complete the strategy immediately and to publish its final version in Greek as well as English. That would protect the state’s critical data and make Cyprus an equal partner, not merely a recipient, he said.
(Information from Cyprus News Agency)
