Government outlines strategy to place Portugal as technology investment destination
Portugal’s Minister for Infrastructures, Miguel Pinto Luz, outlined an integrated strategy on Tuesday to position Portugal as a technology investment destination.
The minister stressed the importance of having predictable and stable regulations and highlighted Portugal’s digital infrastructure talent when he presented Mastercard’s Innovation Excellence Centre in Lisbon.
In his speech, the government minister highlighted that the choice of Portugal by technology companies results from a “set of factors” ranging from qualified human resources to current knowledge and skills sets, and also including Portugal’s attractiveness as a country and good relations between local and central government. As an example of Portugal’s ecosystem, the minister heralded Critical TechWorks, which develops advanced solutions for autonomous driving and on-board systems in Lisbon.
“Up until last week, it was not possible to test autonomous driving in Portugal,” he stressed.
According to the minister, these changes were essential to ensure that international companies maintained and expanded operations in Portugal.
Miguel Pinto Luz warned, however, that the ability to attract investment depended on adapting the legislative framework to innovation, adding that the government had been introducing changes to allow the testing and development of new technologies, including drone projects for last-mile deliveries and the creation of regulatory “sandboxes” in the area of artificial intelligence.
“The Champalimaud Foundation already uses drones on its two campuses,” he also revealed.
Miguel Pinto Luz also cited the Iberian bid to attract one of the European Commission’s five artificial intelligence (AI) gigafactories, which foresees “half in Portugal and half in Spain,” maintaining Sines as the main location on the Portuguese side.
“We are leading the agenda, namely in our bid for the European Gigafactory, therefore it is a 50-50 partnership with the Spanish State,” he said.
Portugal aims to be at the forefront to host one of the first large battery or technological component factories (Gigafactories) in Europe, and to succeed Portugal could no longer just compete by offering subsidies, but rather compete with infrastructure and agility, argued the Minister.
Miguel Pinto Luz also pointed out the strengthening of infrastructure as a central pillar of the strategy.
“The largest innovation center in Europe for fiber optics and submarine cables is in the Lisbon,” he said.
He highlighted the role of the Lisbon Metro as a testing platform for high-speed data transmission technologies, as well as investment in submarine cables, including the new system that will connect the mainland to the Azores and Madeira in partnership with Alcatel Submarine Networks.
Source: Jornal Ecónomico; Photo: Lusa: ANTÓNIO PEDRO SANTOS/LUSA
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