Serbia starts building 168 mln euro innovation district in Kragujevac

The project will span 62,000 square metres and will be developed in several stages. The first stage is valued at 20 million euro and will comprise a 4,700 sq m building and some 10,000 sq m of garage space, the Kragujevac city government said in a press release on Friday, after the groundbreaking ceremony.

Alongside the ceremony, the Serbian government signed memorandums of understanding for the use of the future innovation district with Netherlands-based software developer AET, Japan's Toshiba and local lender Banka Postanska Stedionica.

The innovation district will be an expansion of the 30 million euro data centre which was opened in Kragujevac in December 2020 to back the development of e-government and ensure safe storage of data. It will include a tech park, a national centre for cyber security, as well as facilities for business incubators, start-ups, an artificial intelligence development centre and a robotics development centre. It will also host a smart city centre for the development of smart energy systems and for networking of smart infrastructure, a digitalisation promotion centre with bioinformatics and bioengineering branches, and exploration labs.

($ = 0.923 euro)