Power, Policy and New Cloud Deals: Egypt's AI Data Centre Push Takes Centre Stage at AIDC² 2026

Up to 1 GW of power for data centres, a national strategy due before year-end, and cloud agreements signed on the show floor: AI infrastructure was the story of AIDC² 2026.

At the third edition of the AIDC² Expo, held within Cairo ICT 2026, the question was no longer whether Egypt needs AI infrastructure. It was how fast the country can build it.

The government set the scale at the opening. Minister of Communications and Information Technology Raafat Hendy listed five to seven specialised AI data centres among the sector's targets for 2030. He said the Ministry of Electricity and Renewable Energy will make up to 1 gigawatt of power available for targeted data centre projects, and a National Data Centre Strategy is expected before the end of 2026. The plan is to attract investment in AI data centres, reskill talent, and use Egypt's local infrastructure to export data centre and AI services.

The minister also pointed to Egypt's climb in a global AI readiness index, from 111th place in 2019 to 52nd today: first in Africa and third in the Arab world.

Agreements followed on the show floor. Raya Holding for Financial Investments disclosed three memoranda of understanding signed at Cairo ICT 2026, covering cloud services, cybersecurity and support for startups. One of them, between Raya Integration, Raya Data Center and Nutanix, explores cloud cooperation for public-sector and enterprise customers in Egypt under the Nutanix Elevate Partner Program.

The AIDC² conference in Hall 3 followed the same thread, from the rack to national policy. Panels covered scaling data centres for the age of AI, designing "AI factories", high-density GPU racks and the limits of cooling, sovereign AI and cloud, and data centres and digital sovereignty, with regulators, operators, cloud providers and equipment makers sharing the stage.