Mickoski announces national data centre to be linked with existing Prilep site

Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski announced plans to build a national data centre that will be linked with an existing secondary facility in the Prilep region, saying the project is part of the reform agenda with the European Union and that the EU will provide a grant and a cheap loan.

Government says the centre will unite institutions and strengthen cyber protection

Speaking after a visit to the Monastery of the Dormition of the Most Holy Mother of God in Berovo and while answering journalists' questions, Mickoski said the new national data centre will gather public institutions “in one place” through an interoperability system and provide centralised cyber protection.

"We will connect the primary data centre with the secondary one located in the Prilep region so that we have protection, God forbid, if an intrusion occurs in the interoperability system, we can use the secondary data centre to protect the data. As a tertiary solution we will have a national cloud where, in any case, we will store all information from all connected institutions," he said.

The prime minister reiterated that North Macedonia already has one data centre in the Prilep area and that the EU-backed project includes both a grant and subsidised financing for the construction of the national facility. He said the two centres will operate together to provide redundancy and better safeguard institutional data.

Mickoski also said the government is negotiating with five to six potential investors to take part in the initiative. He accused the opposition of opposing the construction of data centres and framed the debate as political resistance to the state's development plans.

"As long as I am president of the Government I will develop the country in that direction. When another option comes, they have a marijuana economy. I see a public debate in some media close to the opposition that send messages about who will pay the electricity. This is a market democracy and a market society — electricity will be paid by whoever consumes it at a price negotiated on the free market. Regarding cooling systems, messages are being sent that are 10, 15, 20 years old. There are completely different ways of cooling those data centres depending on whether they will be used for artificial intelligence or for other purposes," Mickoski said.

He added that he supports the industry both politically and professionally, as an engineer and professor, and defended building the centres under a national strategy. "They will be built in accordance with the national strategy because this is the future of humanity," he said.

Photo: press material from the event