Macron Visits Forum on AI in the Serbian City of Novi Sad

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday that European countries should invest more in artificial intelligence during his two-day official visit to Serbia.

He was joined by Serbian counterpart Aleksandar Vucic at a forum on artificial intelligence organized by InGrid Schneider Electric LLC in the northern city of Novi Sad.

“Artificial intelligence is beginning to transform and revolutionize many things. But us Europeans are a bit distanced from that. We have to stay lucid, the Chinese and the Americans are investing much more than us," Macron said.

He added that European countries should have a "specific role to play" and invest in their own models.

Vucic added that there is a significant number of "talented" people in the continent "who are here to help us".

French officials have said that Macron's visit is a strategy of bringing Serbia closer to the European Union.

Serbia is formally seeking European Union membership, but under Vucic’s increasingly autocratic rule it has made little progress in the fields of rule of law and democratic reforms, which are the main preconditions for membership in the 27-nation bloc.