China's BGI Group joins BIO4 Campus project

BELGRADE - The Serbian Ministry of Science, Technological Development and Innovation and China's BGI Group signed on Wednesday a MoU to continue cooperation in artificial intelligence, biotechnology, new technologies such as synthetic biology and other advanced technologies in medical diagnostics.

After Switzerland's Roche and Japan's Takeda, the BIO4 Campus project was thus joined by another global partner.

The MoU was signed by Minister Jelena Begovic and BGI Group representatives, the ministry said in a statement.

The cooperation with the company was agreed by Serbian PM Ana Brnabic and BGI Group Chairman Wang Jien in November last year.

BGI Group has already opened a development centre in Belgrade that has hired over a dozen Serbian AI experts.

Thanking the Chinese partners, Begovic underscored that Serbia had a good experience with cooperation with BGI Group, which donated two Fire Eye laboratories to Serbia during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 110,000 sq m campus is an investment totalling around 290 mln euros.

It will have around 1,200 faculty and researchers and around 4,000 students, as well as guests and businesses.

Construction will start in the first half of this year, with moving in slated for the first half of 2025.

The campus, a unique multidisciplinary project in the wider region, is the focal point of national investments in bioeconomic development.

The name BIO4 stands for four key areas: biomedicine, biotechnology, bioinformatics and biodiversity.