Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis met with Amazon senior VP Panos Panay on Monday to review the progress of an Amazon Web Services (AWS)’ investment in a new Athens local zone and to discuss prospects for additional investments in Greece.
During the meeting at the Maximos Mansion, Panay briefed Mitsotakis on the project’s development, noting that the AWS Athens Local Zone is expected to become generally available in July. The infrastructure is designed to enable businesses and public sector organizations operating in Greece to store and process data within the country, meet local data residency requirements and develop applications with very low latency. AWS bills Local Zones as being able to provide access to computing, storage and networking services closer to end users and support latency-sensitive workloads.
The new facility is also expected to provide access to cloud computing, storage, networking and artificial intelligence services while maintaining high security and reliability standards.
A significant part of the discussion focused on strengthening the presence of the Greek language across Amazon’s ecosystem of products and services.
Panay said future updates to the Kindle and Alexa platforms would allow users to employ the Greek alphabet and language in a more natural manner, without automated adaptations that alter usage patterns.
The two sides also reviewed Amazon’s existing investments in Greece and examined potential new projects in sectors considered strategically important. Discussions included infrastructure linked to Amazon’s satellite internet initiative, investments in renewable energy and the possible development of research centers and advanced technology facilities in the country.
Mitsotakis highlighted the quality of Greece’s workforce and universities, arguing that they form a key foundation for the country’s growing startup ecosystem and help attract research and technology investments across different regions of Greece.
Recent years have seen Greece attempt to position itself as a regional technology and data infrastructure hub, attracting investments from major international technology companies.
