Cairo set the tone for the global AI agenda this week. Ai Everything MEA Egypt opened as the first major AI summit of the year. The event positioned artificial intelligence at the center of Egypt’s economic strategy and geopolitical ambition.
Held under the patronage of President Abdel Fattah El Sisi, the summit gathered over 350 AI companies and startups. More than 100 investors attended. Delegations arrived from over 30 countries. Egypt signaled one message. AI is no longer a future plan. It is active national policy.
A Strategic Platform for AI Leadership
The summit was presented by GITEX and hosted by the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in partnership with ITIDA.
Leaders framed the event as a launchpad for:
- Investment in frontier technologies
- Cross border AI collaboration
- Startup acceleration
- Digital economy expansion
Officials highlighted Egypt’s National AI Strategy, launched in 2019. The country now enters its second phase. Policymakers aim to embed AI across key industries while ensuring responsible governance.
The message was clear. Egypt wants to lead AI development across Africa and the Middle East.
Launch of Karnak National AI Model
The Ministry unveiled Karnak, Egypt’s national large language model. Karnak ranks among the highest performing Arabic LLMs in the 30 to 40 and 70 to 80 billion parameter ranges.
Karnak will serve as a local AI foundation. Startups, enterprises, and public institutions can build applications on top of it.
This step strengthens:
- Arabic language AI capabilities
- National data sovereignty
- Local innovation ecosystems
- Scalable enterprise solutions
Egypt now controls a core AI infrastructure asset.
AI Applications Across Government and Society
The government also introduced a suite of AI powered tools built on Karnak.
Key applications include:
- SIA, a personalized AI tutor for Arabic and Egyptian history
- A legal and regulatory AI assistant for citizens and SMEs
- AcQua, an NLP engine auditing Digital Egypt call center interactions
- Healthcare AI tools for early detection of diabetic retinopathy, macular edema, and breast cancer
- Torgoman, a specialized translation engine
- BelMasry, NLP engines focused on colloquial Arabic
- Loghat, an English learning platform to boost workforce readiness
These tools move AI from policy to production. Citizens and businesses will interact with real systems, not pilot projects.
Egypt at the Center of an AI Shift
Unlike theory driven AI forums, this summit focused on deployment. Live demonstrations showcased use cases in healthcare, fintech, cybersecurity, and smart cities.
Egypt aims to attract investors seeking emerging markets with:
- Faster deployment cycles
- Closer end user integration
- Clear regulatory frameworks
- Scalable commercial impact
Ai Everything MEA Egypt runs at the Egypt International Exhibition Center until 12 February. The event highlights Arabic first AI models tailored to regional realities.
Egypt now positions itself as a serious AI economy. With Karnak at its core, the country shifts from ambition to execution.