Egypt Says More Than 100 Faculties Now Offer AI and Computer Science Programmes

More than 100 Egyptian faculties and institutes now offer academic programmes in computer science and artificial intelligence, the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research has said, part of an expansion that positions Egypt among the continent’s largest AI teaching footprints. The ministry also says Egypt’s higher education system will enroll more than four million students this academic year across 131 universities and 185 institutes.

"Universities are developing comprehensive strategies to apply AI across education, scientific research and innovation," said ministry spokesperson Adel Abdel Ghaffar, describing a coordinated push to expand computer science and AI programmes across all higher education tracks.

Programmes, partnerships and training

The ministry frames the growth in formal programmes as one pillar of a broader national effort that combines university curricula, teacher competency work at the school level, and large-scale corporate training. Abdel Ghaffar said the strategy extends beyond coursework into practical training delivered in collaboration with companies and international institutions, including programmes run with the United Nations Development Programme and the Mohammed bin Rashid Foundation.

He added that "training will be a priority for the coming year, through university development centres and programmes designed to align student skills with labour-market requirements." Minister Abdel Aziz Konsowa has issued directives that, according to the ministry, cover institutional development alongside the academic programme.

Numbers that matter — and the gaps

• More than 100 faculties and institutes now offer AI and computer science programmes.
• Egypt will enroll more than four million higher-education students in the current academic year across 131 universities and 185 institutes.
• The country produces more than 750,000 university graduates annually.
• Digital skills training grew from about 4,000 participants in FY2018/19 to 500,000 in FY2024/25.
• National AI Strategy 2025–2030 targets: 30,000 trained AI specialists, more than 250 AI companies and an ICT contribution to GDP of 7.7% by 2030.

While the expansion of formal programmes is significant, the ministry has not published key enrollment and graduation figures for those programmes — data that would show whether the supply of degrees is producing AI specialists at the pace the National AI Strategy requires. The strategy aims to produce 30,000 trained AI specialists and more than 250 AI companies by 2030, and to lift ICT’s contribution to GDP to 7.7% by the end of the decade.

Corporate scale and complementary initiatives

Corporate and international training commitments now sit alongside universities at a scale that, in many cases, dwarfs the formal system. Recent private-sector pledges include:

• Intel: train one million Egyptians a year for three years;
• IBM: 100,000 people over five years;
• Microsoft: a matching figure of 100,000 over five years;
• Oracle: 150,000 trainees;
• Huawei: partnerships with three universities to reach 25,000 students.

Those programmes are described as building AI literacy, while the universities are meant to produce specialists. The ministry has also worked with UNESCO to launch a nationally contextualised AI competency framework for schoolteachers, a foundation the ministry says is necessary because "educator capability is the precondition for classroom AI rather than a complement to it." Whether university faculty teaching the newly created programmes have equivalent support has not been addressed publicly.

Outlook: The rapid rise in programme offerings establishes a broad supply base, but the next challenge for policymakers and universities is translating that footprint into measurable specialist outputs and industry impact. Closing that loop will require published enrolment and graduation data, sustained investment in faculty and practical training, and alignment between formal degrees and the large corporate skilling efforts now rolling out across the country.