Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1191618
12.12.19 3 NEWS A global AI index carried out by Tor- toise Media has ranked Malta's Nation- al Artificial Intelligence Strategy in 10th place out of 54 countries, significantly surpassing countries such as Estonia, Sweden and Austria amongst others. e index investigated seven key indi- cators: talent, infrastructure, operating environment, research, development, government strategy and commercial, which Malta received a very positive scoring on. e AI Index ranked Malta in 17th place when it comes to talent, 36th and 25th in research and develop- ment respectively, 18th in commercial and in 10th place in government strat- egy; with an overall ranking of 32 out of 54. In reaction to this AI Index, Digi- tal Economy parliamentary secretary Silvio Schembri remarked how it has only been few months since the official launch of Malta's National AI Strategy and yet the country has already reached the set target of putting Malta amongst the top 10 countries with a strategy for this sector. "e vision is for Malta to become "the ultimate AI Launchpad" – a place in which local and foreign companies and entrepreneurs can develop, proto- type, test and scale AI, and ultimately showcase the value of their innova- tions across an entire nation primed for adoption. e ambition is to create the conditions for AI to springboard from Malta to the world" said Schembri. He said that the Strategy and Vision for Artificial Intelligence in Malta aim to ensure that benefits brought about by this next wave of innovation delivers benefits across all segments of Maltese society. Malta Digital Innovation Authori- ty CEO Stephen McCarthy welcomed the results presented by the Global AI Index, as they give a high level of con- fidence as we move forward with the execution of Malta's National AI Strat- egy. e MDIA has been given the role of overseeing the implementation of the same strategy. "We have the world's first national AI certification programme firmly in place. e certification process includes a de- tailed assessment carried out by regis- tered systems auditors who will review the technology, in line with Malta's eth- ical AI framework and MDIA guide- lines, in order to ensure that the AI is ethically aligned, transparent and so- cially responsible. e process also includes a due dili- gence exercise on the key people in the business, to build additional layers of trust for users of the technology." said McCarthy. Tortoise Media has developed the In- dex to ensure that policy makers, entre- preneurs and the public have a solid un- derstanding of the new technology, as this significant breakthrough has been compared to the discovery of electricity. According to this index, the US is the frontrunner in AI development, scoring twice as highly as second placed China, mainly due to the quality of research, talent and private funding. On the oth- er hand, China is the fastest growing AI country, surpassing the UK. Malta's national AI strategy ranked 10th best amongst 54 countries Malta's vision is to be amongst the top 10 nations with the highest impact programme FROM PAGE 1 is has been the dire consequence of the political instability brought on by the fallout of the revelations emerg- ing from the investigation into Daphne Caruana Galizia's murder. e study, which surveyed 50 different economic sectors from all over Malta, showed that 15% of respondents report- ed an over 50% decrease in sales. Just as worryingly, the study also indi- cated that 46% of all respondents said they would be "reconsidering, post- poning or cancelling their investment" plans for the next year, raising the issue of the long-term damage which the cur- rent upheaval will have on the business community. Mamo said that the GRTU was sound- ing its voice not only about the current imminent repercussions of the decrease in sales, but also about the fact that every day the political crisis continues damages Malta's reputation in the long- term. "If local established businesses and al- ready established foreign investors are rethinking their investments in Malta let alone the new investors that we were hoping to attract. Malta is no longer at- tractive for the legitimate foreign busi- ness to consider as an investment loca- tion," she said. Such investments were the reason why Malta had managed to turn a deficit in a surplus, and the reason the country could invest heavily in infrastructure, social benefits, and other measures, Mamo highlighted. "Everyone is hitting the brakes on Malta and this will result in a bad eco- nomic performance that will affect our standard of living, the number of jobs available and how much they pay, and so on." Mamo acknowledged that forecasts had indicated that the island's econom- ic performance could not maintain the same rhythm of the past few years, due to the normal economic cycles "But we anticipated that we would have a few years to adapt our spending and patterns to a much slower growth and save for a rainy day," she said. e events of the fast few weeks, how- ever, have caused the country to over- night go "from one extreme to the oth- er". "We are totally unprepared for it and lacking a plan of how to handle the cur- rent crises and manage the situation. Lack of predictability and instability is very bad for business. We will start ap- preciating the repercussions of this in real terms sooner than we think," she added. Property sales take big hit as business confidence drastically down Developers' lobby boss Sandro Chet- cuti told this newspaper that property sales over the past few weeks had taken a significant hit amid the unprecedent- ed political turbulence and ongoing protests. e MDA president said that busi- ness confidence had drastically been reduced, and he could confirm that the sale of property had suffered signifi- cantly as a result. Chetcuti said that the quicker the sit- uation was solved – which he hoped would happen once Joseph Muscat resigned in January – the better. After this, the process would have to start to plot the way forward. "We first have to wait for the political situation to be solved. Once it is solved, we can then focus more on plotting the way forward. It would be presumptuous of me to speak about what will need to be done to amend the situation in the market at this stage," he said. "Once the country has overcome the political situation, we then need to start thinking on how to fix the damage [to the market] which has taken place and how to restore the country's reputation." Chetcuti went on to emphasise that while the vast majority of people in business across all economic sectors were decent, honest and abided by the law, there were a small group who were giving the rest a bad reputation. "Most businessmen and women do their business above board. It is only a few people who give a bad reputation to all of us. And it is not easy to fix such damage," he said. His comments come within the con- text of the charging in court of Yorgen Fenech – the former CEO of Tumas Group, one of Malta's biggest business empires – as masterminding the assas- sination of Caruana Galizia. Chetcuti also noted that "a few in- dividuals" in the business community tended to jump from one bandwagon to the next, going from currying favour from administration to another. "Such individuals sometimes compro- mise high-profile people in politics," Chetcuti added, "And this ends up taint- ing the reputation of the many business people who are very capable and do all their work above board." mcosta@mediatoday.com.mt 'Everyone is hitting the brakes on Malta'