Egypt sets EGP 138.9bn ICT investment target, banks on AI push

Egypt's Communications Ministry is putting a number on its ambitions: EGP 138.9 billion in ICT sector investment for fiscal year 2026/27, with 83.1% of that, roughly EGP 115.4 billion, expected to come from private and foreign capital rather than the state.

That split marks a sharp pivot from how the sector has been funded. Public ICT investment dropped to EGP 13 billion in FY 2025/26, down from EGP 85 billion the year before, pushing the government to lean on private players to keep growth going in a sector that already contributes 6% of GDP and has been expanding 14-16% annually.

The plan leans heavily on artificial intelligence as a growth lever. Egypt's national AI strategy targets more than USD 150 million in AI venture capital, over 250 domestic AI companies, and adoption by more than 10% of local businesses by 2030. Separately, the ministry is eyeing between USD 420 million and USD 860 million specifically for AI infrastructure, data centers, workforce skills, and governance frameworks.

Digital exports are the other pillar. Egypt logged USD 7.4 billion in digital exports in 2025, with USD 5.2 billion of that coming from outsourcing services delivered through more than 240 companies operating over 270 centers nationwide. The ministry now wants USD 6 billion in outsourcing exports by the end of the current fiscal year, USD 8 billion in total digital exports by June 2027, and USD 10 billion by 2030.

Data center capacity remains a bottleneck the government is trying to close. Egypt had just 14 data centers as of mid-2025, only 5.5% of the regional total, a gap that helps explain why infrastructure spending features so prominently in the AI budget. Hassan Allam's digital infrastructure arm has already committed USD 400 million toward the first phase of a new facility.

Manufacturing gets a slice of the strategy too, with Egypt targeting up to USD 1 billion in electronics manufacturing and mobile phone localization investment by 2030. To line up private-sector participation, the government signed 55 memorandums of understanding with local and international firms in November aimed at expanding offshoring and digital export capacity.

Taken together, the targets describe a sector trying to compensate for a steep drop in public spending by courting foreign capital into AI infrastructure, data centers, and outsourcing at a pace few markets in the region are attempting simultaneously. Whether the private capital materializes at the scale the ministry is projecting will determine if these figures hold up by 2027.