''The greatest risk for Cyprus is remaining a passive consumer of artificial intelligence''

With a career that has brought her close to the most influential centres of political and technological decision-making in the United States and Europe, Nina Schick is now ranked among the world’s top 20 speakers on artificial intelligence. A participant in global forums including Davos, CES and TEDx, she is one of the most influential international voices on the geopolitics of AI.

She introduced and championed the term “Industrial Intelligence” on the international stage. Her central argument is that AI has long since moved beyond being merely a “software revolution” or a productivity tool: It has become the ultimate lever of hard power and national sovereignty.

She has advised Joe Biden, Emmanuel Macron and former NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, and works regularly with the U.S. military and the United Nations.

In 2020, her groundbreaking book Deepfakes: The Coming Infocalypse sounded an early warning about the threats AI poses to the reliability of information.

Her visit to Cyprus as a speaker at the Digital Agenda Cyprus Summit 2026 offered Kathimerini an opportunity to sit down with her for a compelling interview. In it, she explains the global battle for technological dominance and the critical challenges facing Cyprus in the emerging AI economy.

THE GLOBAL BATTLE FOR AI DOMINANCE

- Why will the AI war be decided by chips and energy, not just software?

We are entering a new industrial age. For the first time in human history, intelligence itself is becoming something we can manufacture at scale. This is the central argument of my work on Industrial Intelligence.

For decades we understood AI primarily as a software revolution. But its advances are inseparable from a transformation in physical infrastructure. Intelligence is manufactured inside vast computational facilities—intelligence factories—which require advanced semiconductors, enormous amounts of electricity, cooling systems and industrial capacity.

Software innovation remains essential: better algorithms make intelligence cheaper and more efficient to produce. But that can also unleash more demand. As intelligence becomes more affordable and capable, we will find many more uses for it, increasing the strategic importance of the infrastructure that produces it. The defining question is not simply who develops the smartest algorithms, but who has the industrial capacity to manufacture intelligence at scale.

- Is there room for a third pole between the US and China?

The US and China are emerging as the dominant AI powers because they combine technology, industrial capacity, capital, energy and political will. The US leads in frontier AI and much of the advanced computing ecosystem; China has enormous strengths in manufacturing, energy infrastructure and industrial deployment.

Europe has extraordinary talent and research institutions, but has not translated those strengths into comparable frontier AI infrastructure. That does not mean every country must choose one side. It does mean countries will make consequential choices about whose chips, compute, AI systems and supply chains they rely on.

AI sovereignty does not require every country to build a frontier model or replicate the whole stack. It requires understanding strategic dependencies, securing essential capabilities and maintaining agency over how intelligence is used. A genuine third pole would require sustained industrial investment—not just regulation or ambition.

- Have we lost control of truth in the age of deepfakes?

When I published DEEPFAKES in 2020, I warned of an “Infocalypse”: synthetic media eroding our ability to distinguish authentic evidence from fabrication. Six years later, generating convincing images, voices and videos has become extraordinarily easy and cheap.

But the deeper problem is not only that false content looks real. It is that real content can now be dismissed as fake. Seeing something with our own eyes or hearing a familiar voice no longer carries the evidentiary authority it once did.

We have made progress in provenance, authentication and detection, but detection alone cannot solve the problem. We need systems that establish authenticity and rebuild trust. I do not believe truth is permanently lost. The danger is not simply that we will believe what is false, but that we may stop believing what is true.

CYPRUS AT THE GEOPOLITICAL CROSSROADS

- What is Cyprus’s greatest advantage and biggest risk?

One extraordinary opportunity of this new industrial age is that small countries can create immense economic value by finding an indispensable role in the intelligence supply chain. Taiwan and South Korea show how countries that are not superpowers can become central to the global technology ecosystem.

But not every country needs to manufacture advanced chips or frontier AI. Intelligence is becoming a manufactured utility, a resource that can be distributed throughout the economy much like electricity. This offers a second, potentially even broader opportunity: existing industries can use increasingly affordable intelligence to increase productivity, innovate and create new businesses.

Cyprus should identify where it can add value in the supply chain while enabling its businesses and citizens to benefit from this new resource. Its biggest risk is failing to act and becoming a passive consumer rather than an active participant in the intelligence economy.

- Could Cyprus become a regional AI infrastructure hub?

The opportunity is there, but we must be realistic. AI data centers are industrial facilities requiring vast quantities of reliable, competitively priced electricity. Europe is a net energy importer and faces structural energy-cost disadvantages; Cyprus has the additional challenge of a relatively small, isolated electricity system.

If Cyprus is serious about becoming a regional compute hub, energy must be an industrial priority. That means investing in generation, the grid, interconnections and every credible route to abundant power. It should also seriously examine advanced nuclear technologies, including small modular reactors, as part of a long-term strategy—recognizing that these are not an immediate solution.

Digital ambition alone will not build intelligence factories. Cyprus must unlock energy to unlock compute.

- How can Cyprus safeguard AI sovereignty amid regional volatility?

Sovereignty should not be confused with self-sufficiency. It is neither realistic nor necessary for a small country to recreate the entire AI stack. Even the US relies on trusted partners across a deeply international supply chain.

For Cyprus, the priority is strategic agency through resilient infrastructure, trusted alliances and clear choices about critical dependencies. Its EU membership and partnerships across the broader Western-led technology ecosystem provide a foundation. It should know which capabilities and data must remain under appropriate control, which providers it can trust, and how to avoid dangerous single points of dependence.

In the age of intelligence, sovereignty means knowing who you depend on—and ensuring those relationships strengthen your ability to act.

What can Cyprus learn from the UAE?

The UAE recognized early that intelligence would become a strategic industry. It has leaned into areas where it can add value: capital, energy, infrastructure, international partnerships and the ambition to become a major compute hub.

Its lesson is not that every country must replicate the UAE’s scale. It is that AI strategy is industrial strategy. Energy, investment, infrastructure and diplomacy have to work together.

Cyprus has different resources and constraints, but can apply the same discipline: identify its competitive advantages, develop credible infrastructure plans and build trusted partnerships. Cooperation with the UAE could create opportunities in investment, connectivity, regional infrastructure and applications of AI in existing industries.

EUROPE, THE ECONOMY AND THE FUTURE

- Does the EU AI Act protect citizens or stifle innovation?

Europe has concentrated an extraordinary amount of political energy on constructing a legislative framework for AI while failing to build the industrial foundations needed to compete in it. The central problem is not that protecting citizens is unimportant. It is that regulation cannot substitute for energy, compute infrastructure and an ecosystem capable of building frontier AI.

Europe has remarkable scientific and engineering talent, yet it lacks a homegrown frontier AI ecosystem at the scale of America’s leaders. This was not inevitable. Fifteen or twenty years ago, Europe and the US were much closer in their economic and technological positions. Over time, American technology leadership and investment compounded while Europe made consequential choices on energy, industrial policy and competitiveness.

Those choices are now being exposed in the AI age. The consequences for Europe’s competitiveness could be catastrophic if it does not change course. We need a serious industrial agenda for intelligence, not a regulatory agenda alone.

- What will AI do to Cyprus’s services economy over the next two or three years?

For a services economy, the most immediate impact is that intelligence becomes an increasingly affordable input into everyday work. Legal and financial firms will use it for research, analysis and routine documentation; shipping businesses for planning, logistics and operations; tourism businesses for customer service, personalization and productivity.

This will automate some tasks and change the value of others. But the larger opportunity is not merely cost reduction. It is enabling small businesses and skilled professionals to do things previously beyond their reach, develop new services and compete in larger markets.

The question for Cyprus is how quickly it can diffuse these capabilities through its economy—through skills, adoption, trustworthy deployment and entrepreneurial ambition. Intelligence is becoming a new productive resource. Countries that learn to use it well can generate substantial growth even if they do not manufacture it themselves.

What would you tell the President of Cyprus?

My advice would be to recognize that intelligence is becoming a new foundation of economic power. We are learning to manufacture capabilities that were once scarce and exclusively human, but their production depends on a very physical industrial base.

Cyprus should develop a national strategy to secure access to this new supply of intelligence for its businesses and citizens. That does not mean building a complete domestic AI stack, which is unlikely to be realistic. It means building trusted alliances, strengthening resilience and finding where Cyprus can add distinctive value.

And if Cyprus wants to become a serious regional compute hub, it must unlock energy. It should pursue reliable, affordable generation by every credible means, including evaluating small modular reactors for the longer term. The countries that understand intelligence as an industrial and economic resource—and act accordingly—will shape their own futures rather than have them shaped by others.