Morocco targets $10 billion AI contribution by 2030

The?minister responsible for digital transition announced on Monday that Morocco targets a boost of 10 billion dollars ($100 billion) to its gross domestic product by 2030 from artificial intelligence. This is as the country increases its investment in cloud services, training programs, and sovereign data centers.

Amal El Fallah Seghrouchni, Moroccan Minister of Education, told a Rabat conference that Morocco's current GDP is around $170 billion. The country plans to invest in artificial-intelligence centres, which will be linked to the private sector and universities, as well as integrate AI into government administration and industry.

She said that the GDP boost would come largely from increasing domestic data processing capacity via sovereign data centres. Scaling up 'cloud and fibre-optic Infrastructure, and developing an AI-skilled work force to support AI solutions in industry and government.

Morocco's plan aims to train 200,000 graduates with AI skills and create 50,000 AI related jobs by 2030.

Seghrouchni signed on Monday a partnership agreement with France's Mistral AI in order to support the creation of AI generative tools in Morocco.

Seghrouchni stated, "We would like to turn Morocco into an excellence hub for AI and data science in the future."

According to the Minister, the government is also working on legislation that will govern artificial intelligence.

Morocco has allocated 11 billion dirhams (US$1.2 billion) for its digital transformation strategy, which will cover AI initiatives and expansion of fibre-optic infrastructure. Separately, it is planning to build a 500 megawatt renewable energy powered data centre in Dakhla. This will boost security and sovereignty for national data storage. (Reporting and editing by Hugh Lawson; Ahmed El Jechtimi)

(source: Reuters)