President Sisi inaugurates Egypt's 1st Government Data and Cloud Computing Center

CAIRO – 28 April 2024: President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi inaugurated Sunday the Government Data and Cloud Computing Center consisting of two subcenters; one is for infrastructure, and the other is for civil services.

The Government Data and Cloud Computing Center - spanning over 130,000 square meters - lies in a very secure location adopting the most recent mechatronic technology. It consists of 1,327 main servers and 1,200 rack servers. The center's capacity is 120 petabytes, and its services are used by 50,000 public employees.

A center for data exchange was built on 145 feddans, and is powered by a 40-megawatt power plant. It is equipped with ventilation units, and consists of four subcenters comprising 1,400 rack servers, and 1,240 main servers, with a capacity of 73 petabytes.

The Government Data and Cloud Computing Center was designed in the shape of Horus eye, and houses a management and operation center, a convention and conference center, technical solutions center, and advanced data center.

President Sisi highlighted that each ministry used to have its own servers; thus, there was no interconnection between governmental bodies. He added that it cost billions of dollars to establish the center without specifying the figure.

 

Minister of Telecommunications and Information Technology Amr Talaat stated that 15 companies concerted their efforts to establish the Government Data and Cloud Computing Center having as external design Horus Eye.  

The center will enable the use of AI in governmental and civil work as the country did not have its own cloud system. It also offers applications that fulfill the needs of start-ups and enterprises.

In a similar context, the minister noted that, since 2018, $2.5 billion were spent on increasing the internet speed elevenfold by 2022 which made Egypt rank first in Africa.

President Sisi addressed citizens who question excessive spending on infrastructure in spite of the high cost of living, saying that those projects are the “base for departure” [to a stronger economy]. He equally underscored that Egypt must leverage its outstanding location to become a more significant part of the global submarine cable network.

The president encouraged students to study sciences that are highly needed in the market, especially those in the ICT sector, to achieve high income for both themselves and the country.

Minister Talaat stated that the target revenues from outsourcing services in the ICT sector by 2026 is $9 billion. He elaborated that there are 3 tiers of people working in that field. The first tier includes individuals who make $20,000-30,000 per annum, while the figures for the second and third are $50,000-60,000, and over $100,000, respectively.

Initially, Egypt aims for increasing the number of individuals working in the ICT outsourcing services field to one million. The current number is 100,000-180,000. Sixty percent are in the first tier, 25 percent are in the second tier, and 15 percent are in the third tier.