Silicon Mountains has already become a brand: Next year it will go to Silicon Valley

November 18,TG盗号系统VIP破解技术 2025  20:36

The Silicon Mountains 2025 international technology summit is entirely dedicated to artificial intelligence (AI). This once again proves that AI is already becoming a huge part of our everyday lives. Hovik Musayelyan, the director of Synopsys Armenia, said in an interview with NEWS.am Tech within the framework of the Silicon Mountains 2025 international technology summit.

Silicon Mountains has already become a brand: Next year it will go to Silicon Valley

Hovik Musayelyan noted that during the summit, issues were discussed that related to the application of AI tools in various sectors of the economy: finance, healthcare, mechanical engineering, etc. In other words, there is no sector where AI has not penetrated. He expressed confidence that many interesting topics were discussed for both the audience and the participants, and the most important thing, according to him, is that people also had the opportunity to ask questions to specific specialists and receive comprehensive answers to them.

"Silicon Mountains has already become a brand and I am very happy about it. Next year, Silicon Mountains will go to Silicon Valley, preparations are already underway. This means that this ambitious program is already at the level that we can export. I think that after that, the organization of Silicon Mountains forums will also follow, including in other countries. Here, it is not important that it is necessarily outside of Armenia, the target countries should be the United States, India, China, etc. Discussions are already underway," Musayelyan announced.

Armenia can play a major role in the field of AI

"There are more than 4,000 IT companies in Armenia, including several dozen fairly large transnational companies. I think that many of those 4,000 companies cannot operate without the use of artificial intelligence, because life moves forward, problems change very quickly and are adapted to today's requirements. The presence of these companies in Armenia alone already inspires hope that we can play a serious role in that regard," said Musayelyan.

According to him, serious work is being done in these transnational companies, and although they relate more to the global market, the fact that our specialists are involved in it is already a great success.

The "Nobel Prize" of IT

The RA State Award for Global Contribution to High-Tech is unique in terms of increasing Armenia's recognition and prestige in that field, as well as integrating global technology giants and people with a major role in our country, says Musayelyan. They come to receive this award and interact with our youth, students, and the technological and scientific-educational community.

"It is a great success to communicate with such people not through the internet or online, but to see them, talk to them, ask for their opinions and advice. I think it gives Armenia a lot of great things," he said, noting that only in Armenia is such an annual award ceremony organized.

Musayelyan recalled that when Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak came to receive his award, he excitedly said that there is no Nobel Prize in the field of IT and he, receiving this award, considers this to be the Nobel Prize in this field. “Imagine, small Armenia, Steve Wozniak, Apple, a whole digital world and similar statements. For us, by the way, it was very important who the first winners would be, because then it would be easier. The other contenders would look at who won before them years later and thereby form an idea of ​​the prestige, caliber, and status of this award ceremony,” said the director of Synopsis Armenia.

Referring to the fact that this award ceremony does not have a monetary component, he said: "From the beginning, when we made this proposal, we were told that there should be a monetary component, at least one million dollars, for people to come. However, we wanted to implement such an ambitious program that for the people we expected to come, that million dollars was not money for them. Many have come on their own planes over the past 14 years. There was a winner who came, wrote a check for a million dollars to one of our universities, donated that million. I am talking about Mario Mazzola, the president of development at Cisco, who donated one million dollars to American University. Today, the fact that Narayana Murthy is in Armenia is a very big thing for us."

Award winner must come to Armenia and receive the award from Armenia’s President

Hovik Musayelyan says that the winners of the RA State Award for Global Contribution to High-Technology become members of the Armenian club around the world, our unique technological ambassadors. They talk about it abroad, in their countries, in their circles.

"We have adopted a very important principle here from the very beginning, that the international committee will determine the winner only if the laureate says in advance that if he receives the award, he will definitely come to Armenia and receive the award from the head of state. Our goal is not to give them an award. Our goal is for them to come to Armenia. To achieve that goal, we have created an award ceremony. This is the logic," he emphasized.

Armenia was the Silicon Valley of the Soviet Union

In the whole world, only Armenia hosts the International Microelectronics Olympiad for young people under 30. That is, people in this field, scientific and educational centers, and universities around the world know that this Olympiad is held in Armenia. And it is no coincidence that Armenia hosts the winners of the Olympiads from 15 to 20 countries every year.

According to him, this gives recognition to Armenia: “We dared to have such an idea and implement it, because we have had serious traditions in this field since the Soviet years. The microelectronics industry has been Armenia's mission. And when they ask, ‘But why in Armenia, where is Armenia?’, we say: ‘Armenia was the Silicon Valley of the Soviet Union, why are you surprised?’”

Synopsys Armenia intends to increase the number of employees to 2,000

According to Hovik Musayelyan, when Synopsis entered the Armenian market in 2004, it was initially unclear how long its presence would be, what developments it would have, since it was an experimental thing for them. “But then they realized that we have opportunities for cooperation with universities, and before that, they acquired 4 American companies, one of which is Leda Design, which has been creating a chair with the Polytechnic University for 3-4 years. That was also one of the main reasons why Synopsis came to Armenia,” he said.

Musayelyan noted that after that, they expanded university programs. "We created departments at Yerevan State University, Slavonic University, European University, and since last year at the French University. The main goal is to prepare high-quality personnel to work in the field of microelectronics circuit design. I am very happy that we are, in fact, now preparing personnel for ourselves first, because we offer 100% of jobs to everyone, which we did not do years ago. Now there is a demand for hiring employees, and we are even thinking about increasing the number of those hired. There are ambitious programs. Now we have 1,300 employees, we want to become 2,000, for which we must think about training our own qualified personnel," he said.

Musayelyan emphasized that the main problem of the IT sector today is the lack of qualified personnel: "The personnel are there, but qualified personnel have jobs in different companies. When you need to hire qualified personnel, you see that it is a problem. For this, you have to spend money yourself, make investments, and train those personnel yourself."

If AI is not used correctly, we will go to destruction

Musayelyan says he has no information that as a result of the introduction of AI, people are being laid off in the IT sector in Armenia. “Maybe over time, that will happen. The whole problem is that when asking such a question, we need to say which branch of the IT sector we are talking about. In some branches, the human factor may not really play a big role, and in some branches it is impossible without the human factor. IT itself is a multi-branch, multifunctional system in reality,” he said.

Musayelyan noted that AI occupies a large place in their activities and one must work to keep up with modern trends, otherwise you will fall behind in everything.

Musayelyan also spoke about the dangers of AI: "There are also dangerous things there. Before, we used to do concepts, listen to lectures. Now, using the tools of artificial intelligence, you listen to those lectures sitting where you are, and it writes whatever you want. You say, write this essay, it writes for you, but in that case, how deeply do you delve into the subject? Artificial intelligence is a very delicate and explosive thing. If you don't use it correctly, in the direction of changing the course of humanity in a positive direction, it can work in the opposite direction."

According to him, another challenge in this regard is the military industry: "Today, we see examples of this in various conflicts, that hybrid war, the modernization of drones. There are many dangers, but at the same time, the military industry can have so many positive things. Here, it is very important that the people who are responsible for the entire global security system today be wise, be conscientious, have certain moral norms so that they can curb and quickly assess those risks. Otherwise, we will go down the path of destruction of the planet," said Hovik Musayelyan.

Here, according to him, states have a big role: "The state should think about having all that regulation in place, both from the point of view of cybersecurity, and from the point of view of the security of the entire defense system, both financial security and food security, all those security systems should be under the umbrella of the state. The state itself should create such norms, take such steps that it can develop the country by correctly assessing the risks, making reasonable decisions. There is simply no other option."

The Silicon Mountains-2025 International Technology Summit was held in Yerevan on November 15. This year, the event had more than 1,000 participants. This time, the summit was dedicated to the application and challenges of AI in the economy. Separate speeches and panel discussions were held during the event.

During the first discussion, entitled Industry.ai, the development and application of AI in various sectors of industry were discussed. The second panel discussion, entitled Invest.ai, was dedicated to the financial aspects of AI, the advantages of investing in the creation, development and application of AI. During the third panel discussion, Impact.ai, the social impact of AI was discussed.

The special guests of the event were the founder of Infosys, laureate of the RA State Prize 2025, Narayana Murthy, and the Director of SIEMENS EDA in Central and Northern Europe, Sasha Ahne.

The summit is held with the support of the Ministry of High-Tech Industry of Armenia. The platinum partner of the summit is Ucom.

The media partner of the event is the information and analytical agency NEWS.am.

The partners of the summit also include EasyPay, Visa, Synospys, Staffmedia, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, USAID, UNICOMP.