Artificial intelligence in Egypt has shifted from a long-term ambition to a central part of the country’s technology infrastructure, shaping how capital is allocated, policies are developed and questions of digital sovereignty are managed.
The shift comes as Cairo is being positioned as a hub for AI collaboration, investment and innovation across Africa and the Middle East. It also coincides with the launch of Ai Everything Middle East & Africa Egypt in early 2026, a platform designed to bring governments, global technology leaders, investors and startups together as Egypt moves from AI messaging to implementation.
Ai Everything MEA Egypt is organized by GITEX GLOBAL and hosted by Egypt’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in partnership with the Information Technology Industry Development Agency.
Egypt already plays a major role in global digital services, ranking among the world’s leading outsourcing destinations and producing more than 750,000 university graduates each year, many in engineering and ICT fields. That talent pool is increasingly being directed toward AI-enabled services, cloud operations and applied research.
According to the Oxford Insights Government AI Readiness Index, Egypt ranks first in Africa for AI readiness, supported by policy frameworks, investment in skills and growing public-sector adoption. Fitch Solutions forecasts Egypt’s ICT market will exceed $9 billion by 2030, driven by growth in cloud, cybersecurity and data services. These trends align with Egypt’s Second National AI Strategy for 2025 to 2030, which prioritizes access to compute power, development of local AI models, data governance and deployment across priority sectors.
Sovereignty is also becoming a defining theme in Egypt’s AI agenda. Policymakers are focusing on where data is stored, how models are trained and who controls access, driving investment in sovereign cloud, regional data centers and energy-efficient compute infrastructure. Egypt’s location, energy capacity and connectivity are being positioned as advantages for serving Africa, the Middle East and parts of Europe.
Egypt’s AI strategy emphasizes applied use cases rather than consumer-facing tools. Priority sectors include financial services, digital health, manufacturing, logistics, agriculture and public administration, where automation, predictive analytics and computer vision can deliver measurable productivity gains.
Startups are contributing to this push by developing Arabic language models, computer vision systems and enterprise automation platforms. Arabic remains underrepresented in global AI systems, creating demand for locally trained models that improve linguistic accuracy and support compliance with regional regulations.
Ai Everything MEA Egypt will take place in Cairo from Feb. 11-12, 2026. The summit is expected to bring together leaders from the World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Cerebras, HCL Tech, FIS, Tenstorrent and other organizations. The event will also include Fortune 500 companies such as AWS, Capgemini, Cisco, HPE and Microsoft, alongside AI, cloud and cybersecurity firms including Dataiku, e&, Fortinet, F5 Networks, Integra City, Logitech, Novomind, Odoo, Red Hat, SentinelOne and Trend Micro.
Organizers said the event aims to connect global expertise with national priorities and regional needs as Egypt expands its role in AI investment, policy alignment and large-scale deployment.
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