Georgia launches mega-project with CERN and other global technology leaders

The Government of Georgia has chosen to collaborate with leading international partners to launch a €500 million (1.8 billion GEL) project supporting modern technology development in the country.

Georgia first started working on the Technological Institute and Hadron Therapy mega project last year, which envisaged establishing a Science Education Centre for Modern Technology Development for Georgia’s capital Tbilisi.

More details were revealed about the project after a group of experts involved in the project met in Tbilisi yesterday. The meeting involved members of a commission responsible for dealing with issues relating to the foundation and the concept of the project.

The meeting was chaired by the country’s Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili, who said the project would cost around €500 million and the whole sum would be provided by the Cartu Charity Foundation - a charity fund established and financed by Georgian tycoon and former Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili.

Ivanishvili also attended yesterday’s meeting and introduced Georgia with the international partners who will help Georgia launch this large-scale project.

These partners were top officials from CERN - the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, CNAO - Italy’s National Centre of Oncological Hadron Therapy and INFN - the National Institute of Nuclear Physics.

The three world-class scientific organisations and the Georgian Government officially signed a document outlining their future cooperation after yesterday’s meeting.

While talking about the importance and scale of the project, Garibashvili said Georgia would be the fifth country in the world to have a science and education centre of this caliber.

Some of the world’s top scientists will be engaged in working process of the Technological Institute, which will support important research and provide students of all levels with world-standard technological education.