BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//pretalx//cfp.riscv-europe.org//eu-summit-2026//speaker//PAYXDE
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:CET
BEGIN:STANDARD
DTSTART:20001029T040000
RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYDAY=-1SU;BYMONTH=10
TZNAME:CET
TZOFFSETFROM:+0200
TZOFFSETTO:+0100
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
DTSTART:20000326T030000
RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYDAY=-1SU;BYMONTH=3
TZNAME:CEST
TZOFFSETFROM:+0100
TZOFFSETTO:+0200
END:DAYLIGHT
END:VTIMEZONE
BEGIN:VEVENT
UID:pretalx-eu-summit-2026-V7W33B@cfp.riscv-europe.org
DTSTART;TZID=CET:20260611T113000
DTEND;TZID=CET:20260611T120000
DESCRIPTION:The European AI Factory initiative aims to distribute sovereign
  compute capacity across Europe\, but participation from Western Balkans a
 ccession countries has remained largely aspirational. Albania is charting 
 a different course.\nAlbania's ICT sector employs tens of thousands of ski
 lled engineers\, but almost entirely in software outsourcing—writing cod
 e for other countries' products on other countries' architectures. This mo
 del creates employment but not ownership\, capability but not sovereignty.
  The age of AI demands transformation: from consuming compute to shaping i
 t.\nThis talk presents a strategy to establish one of Europe's first RISC-
 V-native AI compute facilities. The initiative is designed not only to ser
 ve Albania's public-sector AI needs but to act as a regional compute hub f
 or the Western Balkans and a gateway for Middle Eastern partners seeking E
 U-aligned AI infrastructure.\nCritically\, the strategy begins in the clas
 sroom. By embedding RISC-V into Albanian computer science and engineering 
 education\, the initiative connects that talent pipeline directly to a sov
 ereign AI compute facility\, transforming a generation of outsourcing engi
 neers into architects of AI infrastructure.\nKushtrim Shala draws on Alban
 ia's track record in digital innovation to show how small\, agile countrie
 s can move faster than larger member states in adopting open ISA infrastru
 cture. The talk addresses what it takes to bootstrap a semiconductor cultu
 re and makes the case that RISC-V is not merely a technical choice but a s
 trategic instrument of digital sovereignty—one that smaller nations can 
 leverage to build resilient\, independent AI capacity.
DTSTAMP:20260715T065852Z
LOCATION:Plenary
SUMMARY:Albania is an AI-Factory - Kushtrim Shala
URL:https://cfp.riscv-europe.org/eu-summit-2026/talk/V7W33B/
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR