Erdogan Announces USD10B AI Roadmap
The summit was convened at Tersane Istanbul, a storied shipyard whose origins trace back to the reign of Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II — known to history as Mehmed the Conqueror — lending the occasion a backdrop of civilizational ambition.
At the heart of the plan is a pledge to mobilize at least $10 billion in investment — drawn predominantly from the private sector — into data centers, cloud infrastructure, and AI development. Erdogan set a concrete capacity target, announcing that Türkiye aims to reach at least 1 gigawatt of installed data center capacity by 2030, while committing no less than 2% of public investment programs to AI-related projects.
"We will launch the National Artificial Intelligence Literacy Program to ensure that people of all ages understand artificial intelligence correctly and use it safely," Erdogan said.
The president framed the initiative in unmistakably strategic terms, arguing that political, military, and economic power can no longer be decoupled from digital sovereignty — describing digital capacity as a force multiplier in the modern era.
Erdogan pointed to a series of recent milestones as evidence of Türkiye's readiness for this leap, including the nation's 5G rollout on March 31, the creation of the Cybersecurity Presidency, and the 2024 launch of Turksat 6A — the country's first domestically built communications satellite — placing Türkiye among just 11 nations capable of producing their own such technology.
The plan's human capital ambitions are equally sweeping. Under its framework, Türkiye will train 10,000 advanced AI specialists and 100,000 AI application professionals. AI literacy workshops are slated to roll out across all 81 provinces, with a goal of reaching 5 million citizens within two years.
On the data front, Erdogan announced that at least 2,000 public datasets — spanning health, agriculture, defense, and e-commerce — will be made accessible to citizens through a newly established National Data Library.
The AI Action Plan is structured around four foundational pillars — discover, benefit, produce, and govern — each supported by four complementary actions. Under the "benefit" pillar, AI will be integrated across public services, industry, education, health, agriculture, and national security, with e-government positioned as a flagship transformation zone for AI-powered citizen services. Small and medium-sized enterprises will gain access to AI vouchers, prioritizing sectors such as health, energy, and smart manufacturing.
The "produce" pillar commits Türkiye to building its own AI models, establishing AI growth zones, and channeling funding into research and startups through dedicated national funds. Erdogan cited TUBITAK's Bilge language model alongside large language model efforts by the T3 Foundation, Baykar, and HAVELSAN's 9-billion-parameter model on the MAIN platform as pillars of the country's push for digital sovereignty.
Under the "govern" pillar, Istanbul will be positioned as Türkiye's international AI showcase and investment diplomacy hub, with Terminal Istanbul serving as a nexus for entrepreneurs and global capital.
Looking beyond its borders, Erdogan said Türkiye intends to take an active role in shaping human-centered AI governance standards at the OECD, G20, UN, and other multilateral forums. He also announced plans to collaborate with the Organization of Turkic States on a joint large language model encompassing Oghuz, Kipchak, and Karluk languages — a move that extends Ankara's digital ambitions across the wider Turkic world.
The announcement comes as Türkiye points to more than 1,700 research, development, and design centers, 114 technoparks, and over 13,000 technology companies built over the past two decades as the foundation on which this next chapter will be constructed.
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