"Argentina is known for its beef and soy exports. Now, in the age of artificial intelligence, it is also shipping talent overseas.
Last year, Agustín Martínez, a researcher focused on AI safety, finished his doctorate program at the University of Buenos Aires. He looked for a postgraduate research position to specialize further, but couldn’t find one in the country. Martínez then applied to universities in the U.S. and Europe, and landed a position earlier this year at one of the world’s leading AI safety centers in Oxford, England.
“When I started looking into where this research was happening, I realized the only opportunities were abroad,” Martínez told Rest of World. “There isn’t a developed ecosystem around AI safety back home — we are just starting to build it.”
Martínez’s decision to leave Argentina reflects the dilemma many young scientists in the South American nation face: stay and fight an uphill battle to find jobs, support, and funding, or seek opportunities abroad, where research communities, cutting-edge infrastructure, and higher-paying salaries are more accessible. Even as President Javier Milei promises to turn Argentina into an AI powerhouse, many of the country’s best-trained engineers are quietly packing their bags.
“The prospects for scientific development in Argentina today are really bleak,” Sebastián Uchitel, who leads one of the country’s main data science centers at the University of Buenos Aires, told Rest of World. While salaries abroad can be up to 10 times higher and research projects more compelling, Uchitel said the biggest problem is structural. “The entire chain for retaining talent here is broken.”
https://restofworld.org/2025/javier-milei-ai-hub-argentina-talent/
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