On 22 April 2025, CETE-P and the HumanAId (OP JAK) project hosted together with the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), the aiworld project, and prg.ai a roundtable discussion called Czechia in the Global AI Landscape: Where Are We And Where Ought We Be?

The goal of this event was to connect EU strategic conversations on AI with the Czech National AI Strategy, and assess whether local needs are met and what the vision for the future of AI in Czechia could be.
  
The roundtable discussion was kicked off with presentation by Robert Praas, Data Scientist at CEPS. He presented high level data on the Czech’s AI ecosystem in comparison to other countries. When taking AI patent registration numbers, high level research publications, and private investment into account, Czechia ranks 30th globally. An estimation on AI-related job vacancies and talent suggests that Czech Republic has currently a talent surplus of AI-heavier jobs. Caveats and possible gaps in the data were discussed with the experts and the audience.
  
From this initial stock taking, Lenka Škrábalová, Head of Department of Digital Economy and Society at the Ministry of Industry and Trade presented briefly the main points of the Czech National AI Strategy. Lukáš Kačena, Director of prg.ai, suggested that there was a bigger strategy missing, which would strengthen and give direction to the economy overall. He further emphasized the importance of setting priorities in order for Czechia to become a leader in an area or domain of AI as a developer, rather than just a user of AI. Kateřina Lesch, Head of AI & Data @ EmbedIT, brought up the missing link of broader digitalisation of the Czech economy overall, which render discussions about AI premature.
  
The audience raised questions regarding hardware for the AI software applications. The panellists connected this to the bigger question of European dependency on technologies from the US and China, and the ambitions for strategic autonomy. Within the space of AI, the infrastructure strategy of the EU foresees AI factories and with the recent AI Continent strategy also ‘gigafactories’, all aimed at providing access to compute power.
  
Another audience member raised the question on redistributing benefits of AI and for policy frameworks to ease the burden of automation. This has also sparked broader conversation on the role of the human in certain professions, such as care work, and an emphasis on the value of the ‘human element’ in the future.
  
Finally, the discussion was wrapped up, noting also the topic the roundtable did not address, such as the need to account for the environmental impact and the impact of AI on democracy. The conversation on the ‘brand’ for Czech AI remains still unfinished.
  
The event was prepared and moderated by Paula Gürtler. 
 
This event was organized as part of the project Human-centred AI for a Sustainable and Adaptive Society (HumanAId, reg. no. CZ.02.01.01/00/23_025/0008691), implemented by the Institute of Philosophy CAS.
The main objective of the project is to develop methodologies and tools that will enable the potential of large language models (LLMs) to be used in a way that is in line with the value and normative requirements of specific users in civil society and government.
This event received support from the AI World project from the Centre for European Policy Studies.
It received organisational support from prg.ai.