Global, regional AI leaders to convene at Ai Everything MEA
Global tech leaders back first Ai Everything MEA in Cairo next month
#Egypt #AiEverything - Cairo will host the inaugural Ai Everything Middle East & Africa from 11-12 February 2026, organised by GITEX GLOBAL and hosted by Egypt’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in strategic partnership with ITIDA (the Information Technology Industry Development Agency).
The two-day event convenes leading AI enterprises, startups, thought-leaders and decision-makers from over 60 countries, with commercial partners including e&, Cisco, Microsoft, HPE, Red Hat, Capgemini, Widebot AI, Cysheild, Connect and AWS. Some 200 venture capitalists from the GITEX network managing more than $1 trillion in assets are also expected to attend, while exploring investment opportunities in Egyptian and regional startups.
Speakers in the conference programme include: H.E. Dr. Amr Talaat, Egyptian minister of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT); H.E. Mohamed AlKuwaiti, Head of Cyber Security for UAE Government; Eng. Ahmed El Zaher, ITIDA; Zsuzsanna Hargitai, Managing Director SME Finance & Development at EBRD; Ruchir Puri, Chief Scientist & Vice President, Technology & Technical Community at IBM Research; Marc Zakher, Vice President & General Manager, Middle East, Türkiye & Africa at Cerebras.
SO WHAT? - Egypt ranked first in Africa and 51st globally out of 195 countries in the Government AI Readiness Index 2025 by Oxford Insights, advancing 14 positions compared to its 2024 ranking. With the country embracing AI across vital sectors under its National Artificial Intelligence Strategy 2025-2030 - which is projected to deliver a $42.7 billion GDP uplift - the Egyptian AI ecosystem is reaching a turning point. The debut Ai Everything MEA event reinforces Egypt’s role as a regional nexus for AI collaboration, connecting global expertise with its fast-growing national capabilities, AI talent pool and AI startup ecosystem.
Here are some key facts and figures about Ai Everything MEA:
Egypt International Exhibition Center (EIEC) in Cairo will host the inaugural Ai Everything Middle East & Africa from 10-12 February 2026, organised by GITEX GLOBAL and hosted by the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in strategic partnership with ITIDA (the Information Technology Industry Development Agency), convening participants from over 60 countries.
Commercial partners for Ai Everything MEA include e&, Cisco, Microsoft, HPE, Red Hat, Capgemini, Widebot AI, Cysheild, Connect and AWS., whilst Middle East AI News is proud to be a supporting media partner.
The event will spotlight AI use cases and frontier technologies across priority sectors aligned with Egypt’s national AI agenda including outsourcing, semiconductor design, cybersecurity, cloud infrastructure, manufacturing, digital health, fintech, energy, education and digital public services.
Over 200 venture capitalists from the GITEX network managing more than $1 trillion in assets are expected to explore investment opportunities in Egyptian and regional startups, whilst one of the region’s largest youth-tech academies will be launched channelling engineering talent into pilot projects.
Here are some of the key events and activities taking place at Ai Everything MEA:
The Sovereign AI Summit will convene international experts and leaders to address how the Middle East and Africa can build AI systems they fully own economically, technologically and culturally, with breakout debates covering sovereign clouds, hyperscale data centres, intelligent shared services and capital flows. Confirmed speakers include:
H.E. Dr. Amr Talaat, Egyptian minister of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT);
H.E. Mohamed AlKuwaiti, Head of Cyber Security for UAE Government;
Eng. Ahmed El Zaher, ITIDA;
Zsuzsanna Hargitai, Managing Director SME Finance & Development at EBRD;
Ruchir Puri, Chief Scientist & Vice President, Technology & Technical Community at IBM Research;
Marc Zakher, Vice President & General Manager, Middle East, Türkiye & Africa at Cerebras.
Sabrina Agresti-Roubache, co-founder at OREUS.
Babak Hodjat, Chief AI Officer at Cognizant
Michel Rogy, Digital Development Practice Head for Africa & the Middle East at The World Bank
Dr. Heather Domin, VP and Head Office of Responsible AI and Governance at HCLTech
Ahmed Abdelaal, Group Chief Executive Officer at Mashreq Bank
Sonel Popatlal, EMEA Leader DC, AI, Client & Gigafactory at Intel
Golestan Radwan, Chief Digital Officer, UN Environment Programme
Amr Elashmawi, Global Head & VP of Strategic Markets & Partnerships at Tenstorrent
Khaled Hashem, President Middle East & Africa at Honeywell
AI 200 will showcase the region’s most promising AI-first startups handpicked for scale, traction and breakthrough innovation, with curated one-to-one meetings connecting founders with high-value venture capitalists to catalyse deal-flow and build connections.
The Supernova Challenge will bring the world’s biggest startup pitch competition to Egypt for the first time, with over 50 breakthrough founders competing in front of renowned investors and unicorn founders for equity-free funding across smart cities, healthcare, fintech and advanced technologies.
Additional programmes include a Global AI Hackathon for data scientists solving real-world industry problems, and an AI Academy offering hands-on labs and certifications.
An exclusive CAIO Programme offers a closed-door experience for Chief AI Officers and enterprise AI leaders with confidential briefings, strategic roundtables and deep-dive sessions into enterprise AI deployment, governance, national alignment and sector-wide transformation.
ZOOM OUT - Egypt’s National Artificial Intelligence Strategy 2025-2030 targets the establishment of over 250 AI companies and a workforce of 30,000 AI professionals by 2030 whilst raising the ICT sector's contribution to GDP to 7.7 percent. The strategy focuses on six pillars including governance, infrastructure, technology, data, ecosystem and talent. Key goals include the development of a national foundational Arabic language model to perform tasks such as translation, sentiment analysis and content generation, which would then enable domain-specific models for key industries including agriculture, healthcare and law. The strategy builds on Egypt's first AI strategy launched in 2021, marking the beginning of phase two with comprehensive regulatory framework under the Egyptian Charter for Responsible AI (published in 2023).
[Written and edited with the assistance of AI]
Middle East AI News is an official media partner of Ai Everything MEA
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