Türkiye unveils 2026-2030 AI action plan for global tech leadership

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday signed a circular enacting Türkiye's 2026-2030 Artificial Intelligence Action Plan, a comprehensive roadmap designed to position the country as a global technology hub through strategic investments and widespread public literacy programs.

Human capital and national awareness

The initiative aims to provide artificial intelligence literacy training to five million citizens across all 81 provinces within two years while launching a national talent program to cultivate 10,000 high-level experts and 100,000 application professionals. Authorities also plan to prepare at least 2,000 public datasets and establish a legal framework to protect user rights as part of the "notice" phase.

Infrastructure and investment strategy

Under the utilization phase, Ankara set a target to expand the nation's total data center installed computing power to one gigawatt by 2030 while allocating 20 million GPU-hours to researchers, startups and small businesses to democratize access to high-performance computing. Public institutions must dedicate at least two percent of their investment budgets to artificial intelligence projects, with pilot programs already underway in health, energy and smart manufacturing sectors alongside the establishment of dedicated AI growth zones. The framework also establishes dedicated research and growth funds to finance domestic initiatives, while encouraging developers to build domestic sectoral language models and physical robotic solutions for export markets.

Global leadership and diplomatic push

The management phase targets attracting at least $10 billion in private sector-led investments while positioning Türkiye as an active player in international platforms including the OECD, G20 and United Nations. Minister of Industry and Technology Mehmet Fatih Kacir said: "AI represents a new determinant of economic prosperity and sovereign borders." He noted that "Türkiye decided to act as a pioneer rather than a spectator in this global transformation," adding that the country aims to build an ecosystem that develops trustworthy products with its own values. Regional efforts include developing a common large language model for Turkic languages and operating regulatory sandboxes in five priority sectors to test emerging technologies under supervised conditions.