#Egypt #AIstrategy- Egypt has begun working with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to develop a national artificial intelligence strategy, Minister of Planning and Economic Development H.E. Ahmed Rostom said at the 15th AIM Congress in Dubai. The five-year plan will focus on responsible AI adoption, public awareness, standardised government systems and secure data exchange. Egypt launched its 2025-2030 National AI Strategy last year and its currently unclear whether the work with the OECD is on enhancing the existing plan, replacing the existing strategy or planning for 2030-2035.
SO WHAT? - Rostom framed AI adoption explicitly around workforce protection rather than replacement, in recognition of growing public awareness about the technoogy’s potential impact on jobs. A July poll by the Cabinet’s Information and Decision Support Centre (IDSC) found that 56 percent of Egyptians believe wider AI adoption will eliminate jobs (a figure barely changed since 2023). The minister said that the goal of the AI strategy is to empower people to supervise and control machines, not substitute for them. His comment suggests that Egypt is trying to increase the focus on workforce readiness.
KEY POINTS:
Egypt has begun intensive cooperation with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to formulate a national AI strategy, Minister of Planning and Economic Development Ahmed Rostom announced at the 15th AIM Congress in Dubai. Egypt is a Non-Member Partner of the OECD.
The strategy will establish a five-year vision for expanding responsible use of AI and emerging technologies, raising public awareness, and standardising government systems and regulations for secure data exchange. It is not clear whether this work aims to enhance or replace Egypt’s existing National AI Strategy 2025-2030.
Speaking in a congress session on ‘Quiet Reinvention of Global Manufacturing and the Art of Production at Scale', Rostom commented on the Egyptian economy and its manufacturing sector before talking about AI strategy. He called for effective regulatory frameworks to ensure transparency and accountability, and stronger cybersecurity standards to address risks from increasingly autonomous interactions between algorithms.
He stressed that AI integration in production must go hand in hand with workforce reskilling, saying the objective is to empower people to supervise and control AI systems rather than replace them.
Rostom called for greater investment in science and technology programmes at universities to widen access to AI knowledge, particularly among disadvantaged groups.
He warned that failing to develop workforce capabilities alongside technological progress could turn the digital divide into a structural challenge for future employment.
ZOOM OUT - Egypt's current National AI Strategy 2025-2030 was launched by President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi in January 2025 with a plan to lift the ICT sector's GDP contribution to 7.7 percent by 2030, create over 250 AI startups and produce 30,000 AI professionals. The strategy rests on six pillars, governance, infrastructure, technology, data, ecosystem and talent, and includes ambitions for a national Arabic-language foundation model (now called Karnak). Egypt has been building AI policy since 2017, establishing its National Council for Artificial Intelligence in 2019 and its first national strategy in 2021, work that helped it climb 49 places on Oxford Insights' Government AI Readiness Index between 2019 and 2023. It remains unclear how the OECD partnership adds to the existing strategy.
[Written and edited with the assistance of AI]
Source: Egypt SIS
Read more about Egypt’s national AI strategy:
Egypt publishes AI governance framework & guidelines (Middle East AI News)
Egypt adds quantum computing to AI council mandate (Middle East AI News)
Egypt proposes Arab AI Council to unify policies (Middle East AI News)
Egypt boosts AI startups with new National AI Strategy (Middle East AI News)
Egyptian president launches 2025-2030 National AI Strategy (Middle East AI News)