Algeria inaugurates national AI school data centre

Minister of higher education inaugurates ENSIA high performance computing centre

Jul 30, 2025

Algeria's Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Kamel Baddari talks with Profesor Abdelmalik Bachir, Director of ENSIA (Image ENSIA)

#Algeria #datacentres - The National School of Artificial Intelligence (ENSIA) in Algiers has inaugurated a high-performance computing centre dedicated to artificial intelligence applications, with a visit from Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research Kamel Baddari. The facility features AI processors including the NVIDIA H100, L40S, and A40 models and will support students and researchers in developing AI models via open-source software ecosystems. The centre will help accelerate innovation across AI model development, computer vision, and domain-specific applications in agriculture, industry, finance, and public services.

SO WHAT? - Algeria has enormous strength in computer science talent production across 74 masters programmes offered at 52 universities nationwide. However, the country also has an acute shortage of AI compute, which is limiting AI research and development. There are a number of significant infrastructure projects, including new national data centres in Mohammadia and Blida. So, the inauguration of the new data centre at ENSIA is not only a big win for the AI school, but also a significant step forward for the National AI Strategy also.

Here are some key points about ENSIA’s new HPC centre:

The National School of Artificial Intelligence (ENSIA) in Algiers has inaugurated its new high-performance computing (HPC) centre dedicated to AI applications and research, with an official visit from Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research Kamel Baddari.
The HPC uses a number of NVIDIA processors including H100, L40S, and A40, providing high-performance computing capabilities specifically designed for AI model development and training applications
Founded in 2021, Algeria's National School of Artificial Intelligence (or Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Intelligence Artificielle - ENSIA) focuses on machine learning, national language processing (NPL) and computer vision.
The school aims to build new models based on open-source architectures, to develop practical solutions for socio-economic sectors including health, energy, agriculture, and transport.
ENSIA serves the Algeria's National AI Strategy 2020-2030, which operates through six pillars: advancing research and innovation, enhancing skills development, investing in infrastructure, promoting AI ecosystem, establishing regulatory frameworks, and focusing on priority sectors
Algeria has a strong AI talent pipeline with 74 master programmes in AI now offered across 52 universities throughout the country. However, access to AI compute resources remains limited.

ZOOM OUT - Algeria's National AI Strategy 2020-2030 is gaining momentum, despite significant challenges to overcome. Led by the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research alongside the Ministry of Knowledge Economy, Startups and Micro-enterprises, the strategy aims to address compute resource gaps, whilst leveraging Algeria's strength in talent production. One priority of the 2025-2030 phase will be to test whether top national AI talent can be retained to position the country as a leading regional AI hub. This rests partly on having the AI infrastructure in place to support the work of such talent and so the opening of new AI data centres shows welcome progress.

[Written and edited with the assistance of AI]

Middle East AI News

Discussion about this post