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ASOF 2026

5th Annual Conference

FORSEE — HORIZON EUROPE — MID-TERM POLICY BRIEF D1.8

Forging Successful AI in Europe

Key challenges and what they mean for Armenia

Maria Baghramian

European Research Area Chair

Centre for Ethics in Public Affairs · American University of Armenia

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What counts as success in developing an AI industry?

Europe has no shared definition of “successful AI”. Even less so for Armenia

Industry & institutions

Civil society

SEE SUCCESS AS GROWTH

SEE SUCCESS AS AVOIDING HARM

Efficiency & lower operating costs
Scalability and competitiveness
“Investment-readiness”
Technical excellence first

Erosion of democracy
Surveillance — state & commercial
Weak, unenforceable accountability
Bias & environmental cost

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THE EUROPEAN BACKDROP

FORSEE and Armenia speak to a policy moment

Its findings land precisely as Europe is deciding how to regulate, resource and power its AI economy.

Binding Guidelines

The EU AI Act has shifted governance from voluntary ethics to enforceable, risk-based law — the reference point every stakeholder now reacts to.

Ensuring Sovereignty

Europe is investing heavily in homegrown compute, “AI factories” and data spaces to close the gap with US and Chinese providers.

The infrastructure concern

Gigawatt-scale AI compute is being courted across the continent — raising hard questions about energy, siting and who controls it.

Sustainability

AI is meant to serve both the digital AND green agendas — yet FORSEE finds sustainability is the goal most often left out.

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EU vs ARMENIA

Same questions, different starting line

FORSEE’s findings travel — but Armenia meets them as a small, late-entering recipient, not a rule-making bloc.

The EU — rule-maker

Armenia — what it means for us

OUR ROLE

The EU hosts much of the infrastructure and writes the binding rules others must follow.

Armenia is the recipient courting the capital. Our leverage is greatest now — at the negotiating table — and shrinks once the facilities are built.

THE RULEBOOK

The EU AI Act is already in force: binding, risk-based law that anchors every debate.

Armenia has no comparable AI law yet. That gap is also an opening: we can design proportionate rules from the start, rather than retrofit them.

SCALE & LEVERAGE

A 450-million-person single market that sets global standards by its sheer weight.

A small state cannot set norms by size. Our influence lies in the conditions we attach to entry — what we require before the investment lands.

SOVEREIGNTY

Sovereignty means closing the capability gap with US and Chinese providers.

For Armenia the risk is the reverse: the same investment can deepen dependence on foreign operators — or, with the right terms, build genuine local capacity.

DISTINCT ASSET

Deep institutional and regulatory machinery built over decades.

Armenia’s edge is human, not institutional: a global academic and professional diaspora — including this room — that can supply the expertise we lack at home.

(~1.5–2 min). The pivot, now read down the Armenia column. The point of every row is the same: Armenia faces FORSEE's questions from the weaker structural position of a small recipient, so the moment of choice is NOW, at the negotiating table. ROLE: leverage is highest before the facilities are built and shrinks afterwards. RULEBOOK: no AI law is a gap, but also a clean slate to design proportionate rules rather than retrofit. SCALE: we can't set norms by market size — only by the conditions we attach to entry. SOVEREIGNTY: the EU is closing a gap; our risk is the opposite — the same money can deepen dependence on foreign operators unless the terms build local capacity. ASSET: our edge is human, not institutional — the diaspora, including people in this room, can supply the expertise we lack at home. That line bridges to Ireland and to the five questions.

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WHAT IT MEANS FOR ARMENIA

Five questions Armenia should ask of the investment

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Environmental terms

Make sustainability a condition, not an afterthought — disclosure of energy, water and the “hidden costs” of compute.

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Enforcement capacity and data provenance

Can we actually regulate the actors we host? Sovereignty is about control, not just where the servers sit.

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Real economic spillover

Local jobs, skills and research capacity — augmenting people — not infrastructure that merely sits here.

4

Education

Learning with AI and learning for AI

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A seat for civil society

Bring universities and civil society into the room at the consultation stage, not after decisions are made.

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THE OPPORTUNITY

From host to shaper

The investment is leverage — if we set the terms

Define success ourselves

Don’t inherit a growth-only definition. Armenia can write technical excellence and societal benefit into the same sentence.

A small-state playbook exists

The EU’s sovereignty toolkit — compute conditions, data spaces, procurement levers — is adaptable to our scale.

The diaspora as infrastructure

A global academic network is itself strategic capacity: governance, ethics, AI expertise, and an honest broker’s distance.

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CONCLUSIONS

Armenia can host AI — or it can govern it.

FORSEE’s lesson from Europe is that “success” is a choice, not a default. The terms we set now decide which of those two futures we get — and the people in this room are uniquely placed to help set them.

Thank you — շնորհակալություն

Maria Baghramian · ETICA, American University of Armenia · based on FORSEE D1.8 Mid-Term Policy Brief (2026)

Funding FORSEE is funded by the European Union (Horizon Europe, HORIZON-CL2-2024-TRANSFORMATIONS-01-06, Grant Agreement No. 101177579). Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Commission. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.