At the opening of the 3rd Forum of the Association of Greek Emerging Technologies Companies (HETiA) which took place today, December 14, 2023 at the Grand Hyatt Athens hotel, Emmanuel Zervakis, President of the Association of Greek Emerging Technologies Companies (HETiA) stated that the goal of the Union is to further strengthen the semiconductor ecosystem in the coming years and connect its members with the state and society.

At the present stage, the Union counts over 80 members, from companies that produce technology and high expertise, with a staff of over 3,000 engineers and a turnover of over 350 million euros.

According to him, digital transformation is now taking place at an exponential rate, with the number of interconnected devices reaching 125 billion euros by the end of the decade, while the amount of data will reach 1 Zettabyte, worldwide.

However, he added, digital transformation without microcircuits and chips cannot be accomplished.

As Mr. Zervakis noted, “according to Mckinsey research, by the end of the decade, the microchip market will reach $1 trillion. The European Chips Act action is expected to leverage investments of over 40 billion euros and Greece has a unique opportunity to take advantage of the funding from this specific program. The role of the state is to become the catalyst of developments, to give incentives and to make more investments.”

For his part, in his own position, the Minister of Development, Kostas Skrekas, underlined that Greece is a safe, attractive investment destination, after a long-term economic crisis, and proved with its recovery that it can pioneer, create and be ” an example to follow”.

In this context, according to him, the biggest challenge is to ensure sustainable development in a period of multiple crises in the coming years and the state’s priority is to expand the country’s production base and take advantage of the European strategy for autonomy in sectors such as mining and photovoltaics. As he pointed out, the microchip industry is also a priority, as now Europe is completely dependent on Asia. According to him “Greece can have a role in the development of this industry, we must not miss this opportunity, especially in chips designing, there are over 20 companies that produce innovation and technology”.

In fact, he announced that in the next period, in cooperation with HETiA, all the necessary financial tools and the legal framework will be developed for the microchip industry to flourish even more in the coming years.

Thomas Skordas, Deputy Director General, DG CONNECT, European Commission, spoke at the forum about the evolution of the European Chips Act and the actions to come, in relation to the semiconductor industry.

According to him, the European Chips Act rests on three pillars: Innovation and development – attracting new investments and production lines – as well as crisis management. European Chips Act brings with it investments of 43 billion euros, while in the coming years it is expected that large technology companies will announce investments that will reach 80 billion euros that will bring more than 350,000 jobs.

Mr. Skordas also referred to the Chips EU program, which started a few days ago, on November 30, and is launching pilot microchip production lines and bridging the gap from the lab to the factory.

In addition, he spoke about the launch of the pan-European design platform through the cloud, which will be launched by June 2024, a large project at the European level, with start-ups mainly as protagonists.

He made special mention, and also in the development of a center for microcircuits, the announcement for which will be published in the first half of 2024, and through which the development of quantum technologies will be supported.

Concluding his address to the forum, Mr. Skordas stated that “the potential in Greece for the semiconductor industry is very great, both technologically and in terms of human talent, but something must be done very soon.”