Cabinet approves establishing national artificial intelligence council

CAIRO - 21 November 2019: The Cabinet, during its meeting on Thursday under Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouli, approved a draft resolution on establishing a national council for artificial intelligence.

The national artificial intelligence council, which follows the Cabinet, will be chaired by the communications and information technology minister and group a number of ministers and heads of several bodies concerned.

The new national body will be responsible for outlining the national strategy for artificial intelligence and overseeing its implementation in a way that copes up with the international developments in this field.

The council will be authorized to cooperate with the related regional and international bodies as well as to select the best artificial intelligence applications that could help offer safe, sustainable and smart services.

During the meeting, the Cabinet approved authorizing the ICT minister to contract and sign agreements with Microsoft, ESRI, VMware and Teradata on the behalf of the government to be self-funded by the ministry during the years 2019/2020, 2020/2021, 2021/2022 and 2022/2023.

A contract with a US firm for purchasing 50 new locomotives and upgrading 50 others was also endorsed at the Cabinet meeting as part the Transport Ministry's strategy to develop the railway system.