Amr Talaat, Minister of Communications and Information Technology, has said that the data centre industry is a major component of building a digital Egypt, pointing out that the government invested $2bn to raise the efficiency of fixed broadband internet; to be the fastest in Africa.
Talaat inaugurated on Sunday the fourth edition of The Future of Data Center Industry Summit, in the presence of the ambassadors of Rwanda and Uganda, as well as the deputy ambassador of Sudan in Egypt.
During his opening speech, Talaat said that a new frequency spectrum has been offered to mobile companies in Egypt, and work is currently underway to increase the number of cell towers nationwide. He stressed that within the framework of the Digital Egypt project, 18,000 government buildings were connected to the fibre-optic network out of a total of 33,000 government buildings. In addition, the ministry works on extending the fibre-optic network to villages under the Decent Life Initiative, targeting more than 3.5 million homes in more than 4,500 villages within the three phases of the initiative.
The Minister of Communications reviewed efforts to strengthen the international information infrastructure; where the landing stations on the Mediterranean and Red coasts of Bahrain were increased from 6 to 10 landing stations, and 10 new paths were created between the two coasts of Bahrain to ensure the efficiency of the network that transmits data between east and west. He pointed out that another project has been completed to establish a data path parallel to the Al Murshideen Road, and work has also been started on the two submarine cables 2AFRICA and SEA-ME-WE-6, which will start operation in 2024 and 2025.
Tarek Shabaka, Chairperson of Mideast Communication Systems (MCS), which is organizing the Future of Data Centers Summit, said that the summit succeeded in its fourth session in achieving one of its most prominent goals, which is to attract the attention of international companies to the Egyptian market and its promising future. He thanked the Ministry of Communications, the Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA), and various bodies of the Ministry for their support and constructive guidance for the conference.
On the sidelines, the Minister of Communications witnessed the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the MCS and the Information Technology Institute (ITI), with the aim of launching a joint training programme to prepare specialized employees in the fields of cybersecurity and data centres.
The memorandum of understanding was signed by Heba Saleh, President of the ITI, and Tarek Shabaka, Chairperson of MCS, in the presence of a number of leaders from the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology and the MCS.
