The President of the Republic officially inaugurated the National Artificial Intelligence Research Centre in the New Administrative Capital, in the presence of ministers of technology, education, and scientific research, alongside representatives of the world’s largest technology companies. The centre represents one of the key pillars of Egypt’s Digital Strategy 2030 and aims to transform Egypt from a consumer of artificial intelligence into a producer and developer of it at the regional level. The total cost of the project in its first phase exceeds 850 million Egyptian pounds.
The centre’s initial configuration includes ten specialised research laboratories focusing on: natural language processing with an emphasis on Arabic, computer vision, artificial intelligence in healthcare, AI applications in smart agriculture, autonomous transport systems, and AI-based information security. In its founding phase, the centre has attracted over 120 specialised researchers from Egypt and the Arab world, as well as a number of Egyptian professionals returning from abroad.
The Minister of Communications and Information Technology affirmed that the centre has ambitious plans to qualify 10,000 artificial intelligence specialists over the next five years through intensive training programmes and doctoral and master’s degree programmes in cooperation with Egyptian universities and international partners. He explained that the centre has concluded research partnerships with Microsoft, Google, Samsung, and a number of prestigious global universities to ensure connection to the latest global technical developments.
On the applied level, the centre’s teams are working on research projects with a direct impact on national issues, most notably: the development of a large Arabic language model capable of engaging with the cultural and cognitive specificities of the region, an AI system for diagnosing diseases endemic to the Middle East, and an AI system to improve water resource management in the Nile Basin within the framework of African regional cooperation.
This centre represents a strategic bet by the Egyptian government on the future of the digital economy and Egypt’s ability to compete in advanced technological sectors. Its success will ultimately be measured by the volume of specialised professionals it produces, the research it converts into marketable technological products, and its capacity to retain young Egyptian talents and re-attract skilled professionals who have emigrated abroad.