Leadership change at Latvia’s Artificial Intelligence Centre
On 19 December 2025, the board of Latvia’s Artificial Intelligence Centre (Mākslīgā intelekta centrs) decided to replace the organisation’s chief executive. The information was released on Friday evening.
The previous head of the centre, Natalija Čerņecka, had led the organisation since August 2025. As of 22 December, no changes have been reflected in her public profiles, including LinkedIn. At the same time, publicly available institutional records linked to the centre’s ministerial oversight have not yet been updated.
The board appointed Guna Puce as the new head of the centre. She previously served as Director of Latvia’s Register of Enterprises and has more recently worked on IT governance processes within the Ministry of Justice. According to the official explanation, the leadership change marks a transition from the centre’s initial strategic phase to a phase focused on practical implementation.
Context
Among the priorities outlined for the next phase are AI Factory Latvia and Latvia’s involvement in broader European initiatives related to AI computing infrastructure, including so-called AI Gigafactories.
AI Factory Latvia is positioned as a national coordination and access point to shared European high-performance computing resources under EU programmes, rather than as the creation of a large-scale, stand-alone computing facility within Latvia. In practice, this model relies on remote access to infrastructure located in other member states.
At the EU level, AI Gigafactory projects remain at a conceptual and selection stage and are expected to be concentrated in a limited number of locations. Their deployment depends on structural factors such as the availability of large volumes of stable and competitively priced electricity, advanced grid infrastructure and specialised technical capacity — constraints that remain significant across the Baltic states. BSM © 2025
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