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Egypt Today
10-02-2025
- Business
- Egypt Today
ICT Minister meets with global ministers to discuss AI governance, emphasizes Egypt's AI-related commitments
Cairo – February 10, 2025: Amr Talaat, Egypt's Minister of Communications and Information Technology, reaffirmed the country's commitment to advancing global artificial intelligence (AI) governance during his participation in the Ministerial Coordination Meeting of the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI). Additionally, Talaat outlined Egypt's efforts to address the impact of AI on the job market, emphasizing the country's focus on providing digital skills training to workers. These initiatives aim to equip individuals with the skills necessary to meet the evolving demands of the economy. Moreover, he underscored Egypt's commitment to enhancing cybersecurity for AI systems, focusing on privacy protection and preventing data breaches. The meeting was held at the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs in Paris, as part of the ongoing Artificial Intelligence Summit. The meeting focused on the comprehensive approach adopted by the GPAI in AI governance, aiming to explore future cooperation opportunities with countries across different regions and strengthen international coordination in the AI field. Participants included senior officials such as Jelena Begovic, Serbia's Minister of Science, Technological Development, and Innovation; Aysen Atchieveri, Chile's Minister of Science, Technology, Knowledge, and Innovation; Zhaslan Madiev, Kazakhstan's Minister of Digitalization, Innovation, and Aerospace; and Audrey Blonk, Deputy Director of Science, Technology, and Innovation at the OECD. During the meeting, Talaat outlined Egypt's latest advancements in AI governance, including Egypt's launch of the second version of its National Artificial Intelligence Strategy in January 2025. This updated strategy focuses on six main pillars. The first of these is governance, ensuring the ethical and responsible use of AI while addressing issues such as transparency, algorithmic bias, and privacy protection. The second pillar involves data governance, which aims to develop robust frameworks to ensure the safe and ethical use of data in AI technologies. Another critical pillar is infrastructure, which aims to expand cloud computing services, implement digital transformation projects, and provide high-performance computing applications. Talaat also emphasized the importance of fostering an innovative ecosystem by supporting startups and nurturing innovation. The technology pillar, which focuses on the development of new AI models and algorithms, including deep learning applications, is crucial for improving the quality of life and enhancing the efficiency of various sectors. Lastly, the strategy prioritizes the development of AI skills through capacity-building programs. These initiatives are designed to equip workers with the necessary skills to thrive in an AI-driven economy. Talaat also underscored Egypt's active role in international AI forums, noting that Egypt is the first African nation to adopt the OECD's AI principles. The country is also contributing to the OECD's AI Working Group, underscoring its commitment to international collaboration. Talaat emphasized Egypt's interest in fostering regional cooperation in AI, particularly within the Arab and African regions, through the Arab League and the African Union. He also discussed Egypt's efforts to address the challenges posed by AI technologies, such as algorithmic bias, transparency, and accountability, in alignment with international initiatives. The minister called for increased global investments in innovation to address the challenges related to the high costs of AI infrastructure. He also advocated for more research in the field of AI within both Africa and the Arab region. During his visit, Talaat is scheduled to meet with officials from French companies to discuss investment opportunities in Egypt's communications and information technology sector, as well as with representatives from international institutions to explore potential areas of cooperation.
Yahoo
09-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trudeau says powering AI without compromising climate change is a G7 priority
PARIS — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that developing more electricity to power artificial intelligence will be a key priority of the G7 this year, as Canada assumes the presidency of the multinational body. Trudeau said Sunday that this increased power generation shouldn't come at the expense of addressing climate change, pushing nuclear energy as a priority. "With our G7 partners, we will be working to make sure the innovators have access to clean, reliable energy to power AI without hindering the fight against climate change," Trudeau told the roundtable, which included Canadian and French officials, plus representatives from tech companies like Amazon, Dell and IBM. "To do so, we must build the infrastructure necessary to achieve this at the speed that matches AI development, and nuclear technologies will be a crucial part of the solution." The prime minister added that at the same time "just as much thought' needs to be put in to ways to reduce the energy demand of AI. The technology notably requires a significant amount of electricity for necessary computing power. Following this roundtable, Trudeau will have a private dinner with French President Emmanuel Macron. Trudeau is scheduled to attend the AI Action Summit in Paris Monday. Experts say the AI Action Summit is a chance to demonstrate Canada's strength when it comes to artificial intelligence. Florian Martin-Bariteau, research chair in technology and society at the University of Ottawa, said "it's important to position Canada and to remind people that Canada has something to say." Martin-Bariteau said Canada has been a leader in AI governance, citing the 2017 Montreal declaration on responsible AI. In 2020, Canada and France also jointly launched the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence, which is now being integrated with the OECD. At the time, the Canadian government described it as an international collaboration involving "projects focused on ensuring AI is human-centred by design and fostering public trust in its use." Trudeau is scheduled to speak at a closing ceremony of an informal ministerial meeting related to that partnership Sunday. Both initiatives predate the emergence of widely-available generative AI that has invigorated the conversation around AI safety and regulation in the past few years. Since the launch of ChatGPT brought the issue into the forefront, there have been two international meetings, largely focused on AI safety and risk. The first took place at Bletchley Park in the U.K. in 2023, and the second in Soeul, South Korea, in 2024. The two-day summit in Paris will have a broader focus, looking at questions including AI and the public interest, the future of work, innovation and culture. The Paris meeting will be co-chaired by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Emmanuel Macron, while U.S. Vice President JD Vance and China's Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang are also expected to attend. France says nearly 100 heads of state and government and almost 1,000 civil society stakeholders from about 100 countries are expected to take part. Rowan Wilkinson, a research analyst for the digital society program at Chatham House in the U.K., said Trudeau's attendance demonstrates and supports current Canadian policy efforts and said the country's "academic excellence on this topic also needs to be embraced." "The summit is an opportunity for Trudeau to signal his commitment to this transformative technology and Canada's role on the global stage," she said. But while Canada's research strength in AI has been widely recognized, critics have taken issue with some aspects of the country's AI efforts, including that it has been slow to commercialize the technology. And while the Liberal government has lauded its AI regulation bill, some said the government was too slow to get it through Parliament, and the bill now looks likely to die on the order paper ahead of an anticipated spring election. Martin-Bariteau said heads of state could issue a joint statement at the summit, and that countries tend to follow up such statements at the national level. He said the joint statement on AI safety issued at the first meeting in Bletchley Park in the United Kingdom was one of the successes of that 2023 summit, and most of the countries who signed on are now "building capacity at the national level." The countries represented at that meeting also asked Yoshua Bengio, one of the Canadian "godfathers" of AI, to lead efforts to put together an international report on AI safety. The report, which incorporates input from 96 AI experts from around the world, was focused on general-purpose AI and was released in late January. It says some of AI's potential harms are well-known, including the use of technology for scams, non-consensual intimate images, child sexual abuse material, the risk of bias in system outputs and privacy violations. It says as general-purpose AI gains more capabilities, more risks are emerging, including "large-scale labour market impacts, AI-enabled hacking or biological attacks, and society losing control over general-purpose AI." Wilkinson said Bengio's report is "a timely, comprehensive reminder of the risks and capabilities of general-purpose AI systems and will likely be a conversation-starter over the summit." At the 2024 AI summit in Seoul, world leaders agreed to build a network of publicly backed safety institutes to advance research and testing of the technology. Canada announced the launch of the Canadian Artificial Intelligence Safety Institute in November. Nicolas Papernot, co-director of the institute's research program, said its work will be grounded in Bengio's report as it pursues questions about bias, the robustness of AI systems and their predictions and the potential for privacy breaches. Papernot said the Canadian institute is "in touch with a lot of these parallel institutes. The idea is essentially to have a shared agenda for research." This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 9, 2024. Anja Karadeglija, The Canadian Press
