San Francisco, US, March 20, 2026 (Lusa) – The Secretary of State for Digitalisation, Bernardo Correia, on Friday concludes a visit to the San Francisco Bay Area in California, where he has been promoting Portugal as a prime investment destination for Artificial Intelligence (AI) and data centres.
The five-day mission coincided with the government’s approval of the National Data Centre Plan, an initiative designed to position Portugal as a leading European data hub while securing digital sovereignty and attracting foreign direct investment. Speaking to Lusa, he said that Portugal possesses the talent and the necessary conditions to attract AI investment, research hubs, and data centres from both venture capital firms and software giants.
“We have major start-ups, scale-ups and unicorns, and we need to highlight the quality of our ecosystem, the quality of our talent, our ecosystem’s ability to create value and generate wealth”, said Bernardo Correia.
“We are also here to ensure that Portugal is well positioned for what is, at this moment, the greatest opportunity of the century to attract investment, which is the construction of data centres”.
“We are talking about absolutely astronomical sums, and Portugal is well-positioned to capture this investment”.
The visit, part of the National Digital Strategy, concludes on Friday at Stanford University with an event dedicated to sustainability in the digital transition, following a visit to the Plug and Play incubator, meetings with venture capital funds, and talks with digital infrastructure firms.
“We have also been looking at how we can promote Portugal as an investment destination for Artificial Intelligence infrastructure and talking to investors in this area,” he said.
The Secretary of State noted that there is, in Silicon Valley, a renewed interest in hardware and physical AI, saying that advanced robotics and quantum sensing are the “cutting edge” of technological evolution that must be brought to Portugal.
“We must ensure that Portugal and Europe are at the forefront of technology, rather than simply chasing after technologies that others are already leading,” he said.
The mission sought to identify global best practices for incubating and accelerating AI and deep-tech start-ups, “to ensure Portugal is well represented and well positioned for international investment”.
Part of this strategy involves the Plug and Play incubator, which has partnered with Startup Portugal to support the internationalisation and scaling of Portuguese start-ups in the United States.
But the government wants to find other ways to collaborate, said Bernardo Correia, to “better connect” start-ups in Portugal and California.
“The start-up ecosystem in the San Francisco area is the best in the world, the most advanced on the planet, and there is a great deal of exchange of information here on how we can improve our own ecosystem in Portugal,” he said, adding that the visit had opened doors and should lead to concrete partnerships in the future.
The Secretary of State’s visit was supported by the Consulate-General of Portugal and the AICEP (Portuguese Trade and Investment Agency) office in San Francisco, which have been working to position Portugal as a centre for technological development with good business opportunities on the international stage.
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