Greece's national artificial intelligence infrastructure project, the Pharos AI Factory, was the centrepiece of the Ministry of Digital Governance and Artificial Intelligence's pavilion at the 90th Thessaloniki International Fair (TIF), held from 5 to 13 September 2026 in Pavilion 12 of the TIF-HELEXPO exhibition centre, according to Pharos AI Factory. This year's edition marked 100 years since the first Thessaloniki fair in 1926, with Japan as the honoured country.
Daedalus at the core
The exhibition space was built around Daedalus, the new supercomputer that serves as the computing core of Pharos. Daedalus ranks 31st in a global supercomputer listing, placing Greece among 14 countries that operate infrastructure of this scale, according to a report on the ministry's stand by Pelop.gr, which said the stand ran under the motto "Greece of gov.gr — Greece of Today." Pharos is funded through EuroHPC grant No. 101234269, alongside support from the Greek Ministry of Digital Governance.
Two panel discussions were held on 7 September. The first, from 11.30 to 12.30, was titled "A Citizen-Friendly State: A State with AI Serving the Citizen" and brought together Digital Governance and AI Minister Dimitris Papastergiou, Deputy Interior Minister V. Charalampogianni, information systems and digital governance secretary general D. Anagnostopoulos, National Transparency Authority governor A. Rogkakou, special secretary for AI and data governance V. Karkatzounis, and GRNET chairman and NTUA professor emeritus St. Kollias. The second, from 16.00 to 17.00, was titled "Digital Sovereignty in Practice: Greece's Role in European Strategy" and added Pharos S.A. chief executive A. Sevasti.
Part of a wider digital push
The same pavilion featured the Hellas-Space 2.0 microsatellite programme, shown with simulated exhibits in a dedicated "Greece in Orbit" area focused on Earth observation and secure communications, and a unified digital infrastructure for serving citizens and businesses. Other exhibits included the MyHealth digital health record, a Gov.gr Wallet function for stadium tickets, the MyStreet platform for monitoring public spaces, and AI-enabled road-safety cameras. The Cadastre's migration to the government cloud is about 99 per cent complete, Pelop.gr reported.
What happens next
With the fair running to 13 September, the ministry used the platform to present Pharos and Daedalus as working infrastructure shown to the public rather than plans on paper. The emphasis on digital sovereignty, the theme of the afternoon panel, points to Athens positioning the facility within a wider European effort on AI computing capacity. Neither source set out further milestones, usage figures or funding amounts for the project, and the ministry has not said when the next Pharos deployments are due.