Vezilka — North Macedonia's EUR 6M National AI Factory Antenna, Led by University Faculty FINKI

North Macedonia's Ministry of Digital Transformation and FINKI (the Faculty of Computer Science and Engineering at Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje) launched "Vezilka," the country's first National Centre for Artificial Intelligence, on 14-15 October 2025. The roughly EUR 6 million project is funded through the European Union's Horizon Europe programme and the EuroHPC initiative, co-financed by the Ministry of Digital Transformation and FINKI, and Vezilka is formally set up as a national "Antenna" of the pan-European Pharos AI Factory based in Greece, giving Macedonian researchers, institutions, companies and start-ups access to shared European AI computing infrastructure.
Vezilka is designed to operate as a training and development hub offering "public courses, specialist training, AI in education, and co-working hubs" across five national priority areas: language and culture (including a Macedonian-language model), healthcare, energy, public administration and agriculture. Minister Stefan Andonovski called it "a capital project of historical and national importance," and FINKI's own announcement describes the centre's mandate as fostering "the development of human capital through training" alongside support for companies, researchers and institutions implementing AI solutions.
As a newly launched centre, Vezilka has not yet published participant numbers, course completion data or skills outcomes; the evidence available documents funding, governance and institutional commitments rather than delivered training results.

Read the full analysis: https://mdt.gov.mk/en-GB/odnosi-so-javnost/soopstenija/andonovski-makedonija-dobiva-nacionalen-centar-za-vestacka-inteligencija-zapocnuva-proektot-vezilka