Türkiye Sets $10 Billion AI Infrastructure Target in 2026-2030 Plan
By Bosphorus News Türkiye Desk
Türkiye has set a $10 billion artificial intelligence infrastructure target under a 2026-2030 action plan announced by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Istanbul, placing data centers, public-sector adoption and Turkish-language model development at the center of the country's AI agenda.
Erdoğan unveiled the plan on June 13 at the Türkiye Artificial Intelligence Summit at Rixos Tersane in Istanbul, describing the new roadmap as a four-part program built around awareness, use, production and governance. The plan follows Türkiye's 2021-2025 national artificial intelligence strategy and shifts the file toward investment, public data, computing infrastructure and model development.
The largest spending line is infrastructure. Erdoğan said Türkiye would mobilize a minimum of $10 billion, mainly from the private sector, for data centers, cloud services and artificial intelligence infrastructure, while offering foreign investors a single-window roadmap within 30 working days.
The plan also sets a 2030 target to lift Türkiye's installed data-center capacity to 1 gigawatt or more. The government says data-center regulation will cover international standards and energy efficiency, placing the electricity and infrastructure burden of artificial intelligence inside the country's industrial-policy agenda.
The workforce program is broad. Erdoğan said Türkiye would launch a national artificial intelligence literacy program and train 5 million citizens in two years through workshops across all 81 provinces. The plan also targets 10,000 advanced artificial intelligence specialists and 100,000 artificial intelligence application professionals.
The literacy push has already gained a corporate partner. Google Türkiye said on June 15 that it had launched the "Herkes İçin Yapay Zekâ" platform with Türkiye's Industry and Technology Ministry, offering free training content for general users, professionals, students, developers and public employees.
The plan also moves into public data and procurement. The government plans to make no fewer than 2,000 public datasets available through a National Data Library, beginning with areas such as health, agriculture, defense and e-commerce. Erdoğan also said artificial intelligence projects would receive a minimum 2% share of public investment programs, with public institutions expected to act as early buyers and reference customers for domestic solutions.
The model-development track brings the plan into language, data control and digital sovereignty. Erdoğan said work would continue on Turkish-language large language models, naming the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Türkiye's Bilge model, a large language model developed through cooperation between the T3 Foundation and Baykar, and HAVELSAN's 9-billion-parameter model on its Main Platform.
Industry and Technology Minister Mehmet Fatih Kacır presented Bilge during the summit program as part of Türkiye's domestic artificial intelligence work. The government's wording still points to continuing model-development tracks rather than a completed national artificial intelligence platform.
The plan also extends the language file beyond Turkish. Erdoğan said Türkiye would work with the Organization of Turkic States on a shared Turkic-language large language model, to be developed in phases across the Oghuz, Kipchak and Karluk language groups.
The Turkic-language model track links the AI plan to the wider Organization of Turkic States language and education agenda, including the Türkistan education roadmap recently covered by Bosphorus News.
The digital-sovereignty language places Türkiye in the same policy fight now shaping AI regulation and investment elsewhere: control over data, computing power, language models and cloud infrastructure. Turkish technology writer Füsun Sarp Nebil argued in T24 that local language models alone cannot deliver digital sovereignty, pointing to data centers, energy, chip access and human capital as the real tests for Türkiye's artificial intelligence economy.
Türkiye has now put measurable targets behind the artificial intelligence file: $10 billion in infrastructure resources, 1 GW of data-center capacity, 5 million trainees, 2,000 public datasets and a public-procurement channel for domestic solutions. Delivery will depend on power supply, private investment, skilled labor, data governance and whether public institutions can turn the roadmap into working systems.
Sources: Presidency's Directorate of Communications, Türkiye's Industry and Technology Ministry, Google Türkiye, T24, Bosphorus News review and reporting.