Speaking before Parliament’s Committee on the Economy and Territorial Cohesion, Castro Almeida highlighted that productivity is “a crucial issue.” While companies must address the primary challenges themselves, the Government can support them in a “fundamental area”: encouraging the use of AI.

“There isn’t a single large company that isn’t conducting massive AI training initiatives for its workforce. However, our economic landscape is made up of very small businesses, averaging three employees per company, “which is extremely low”, making it difficult for these organisations to integrate AI into their production processes, he noted.

According to the Minister, a pilot AI training session will take place in October for about 100 workers from various companies in the Leiria region. This will serve as a model to later “scale up the training,” to train around 100,000 workers in AI.

“If we have 100,000 workers from micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises who are familiar with AI and capable of using and implementing it within their organisations, that will represent a significant step forward in our productivity journey,” he added.

The Minister highlighted that a pilot initiative will also be organised in Marinha Grande within the mould-making sector, involving training for “five or six companies” to see how AI can benefit the production process “in specific industrial operations.”

“These two pilot initiatives will allow us to conclude so we can then organise their rollout on a national scale. (...) The idea is to conduct training sessions in this AI field, which is indispensable for anyone looking to boost productivity, across the country, from Minho to the Algarve,” he stated.

According to Castro Almeida, “hundreds” of medium-sized and large companies are already receiving funding through the IFIC (Financial Instrument for Innovation and Competitiveness), with a significant portion of this support dedicated to introducing AI into their organisations.

“We have allocated over 400 million euros to this. These funds were specifically for the introduction of artificial intelligence in these companies,” he concluded.