Stefan Andonovski expects cornerstone for national data centre in 2027

Minister of Digital Transformation Stefan Andonovski said he expects a cornerstone to be laid for North Macedonia's national data centre in 2027, after the government finalises the site's urban design and secures external financing.

"We have established the location, we know the exact plot. Now we will work on its urbanisation, connections, so we can apply. We are actively seeking funding sources from our international partners. So, when we have agreements on both aspects — a determined location with an urban plan and a selected financier — we will go public," Andonovski said, adding that authorities will present the public project documents together with an environmental impact study and a social study.

Andonovski also told broadcasters that the ministry is engaging potential private investors for commercial data-centre projects. He said officials have marked several candidate sites and hold frequent meetings with interested international companies.

"We have identified certain locations and we are discussing them with potential investors, but we still do not have a concrete project that I can speak about publicly. We are strongly interested in this issue and tomorrow we have a conference with the private sector at which our companies will discuss what their capabilities are that they can offer to potential investors in data centres — in terms of infrastructure, expertise, construction, maintenance of those systems, the power grid, connectivity... I am glad that the private sector is waking up, wants to appear on the market and is organising this conference itself," the minister said.

Following a recent flood and a power cut in the former "Nova Makedonija" building — which affected several ministries and included data belonging to the Ministry of Digital Transformation and the national e-services portal — servers were moved to a new location within the ministry to avoid service interruptions for citizens.

Resilience, protocols and AI

"Such cases, when equipment is stored improperly, when there is insufficient security, guarding and power, can occur regularly on the state's critical systems. We were lucky that we were prepared as a Ministry, we reacted immediately, but I cannot guarantee that every institution in the state is prepared to react in the same way. When we have a national data centre, it is the responsibility of one institution to take care of it; it will have protocols, procedures and will not allow these things to cause interruptions in critical infrastructure, because there will be a second power supply, batteries, generators for protection...," Andonovski warned, stressing the operational safeguards a centralised facility would provide.

He also said experts have already drafted an initial text of the country's artificial intelligence strategy and that broad public consultations will begin soon to collect comments and suggestions. "We will not rush, but I expect that by the end of the year we will have the final text. I think we are prepared, we have a very solid text. One of the first activities we will have is the adoption of a law on the use of artificial intelligence in 2027 and I expect that law will encourage its use," Andonovski said, adding that the aim is to promote beneficial uses of AI and limit abuse.

Photo: press material from the event