Türkiye aims to boost AI competitiveness with new action plan
Türkiye is set to unveil a refreshed national vision and action plan for artificial intelligence on June 13, aiming to sharpen its global competitiveness and accelerate AI-driven transformation, Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz announced Friday in Istanbul.
Speaking at the AI Tomorrow Summit 2026, Yılmaz said the new road map—due to be introduced by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan—will prioritize five pillars: nurturing human capital, expanding high-performance computing infrastructure, building robust data ecosystems, advancing sector-focused applications, and strengthening governance and oversight mechanisms.
“We consider artificial intelligence not merely as a technological tool but as one of the fundamental components of our development and competitiveness policies,” Yılmaz said during a session titled “Artificial Intelligence in the Century of Türkiye: Strategy and Vision.”
Organized by the Artificial Intelligence Policies Association (AIPA), the summit convened leading AI researchers, policymakers, entrepreneurs, and technology executives to discuss the next phase of Türkiye’s AI strategy and the opportunities emerging from rapid advances in the field.
Yılmaz highlighted that Türkiye has gained momentum since launching its first National Artificial Intelligence Strategy for 2021–2025. In global AI indices, the country moved from 44th place in 2021 to 34th by the end of 2024.
“This demonstrates that Türkiye has gained significant momentum, but we believe we must reach an even better position,” he noted.
The upcoming strategy is designed to track fast-evolving technologies and policy trends. Yılmaz said it will address agentic AI systems, sovereign AI approaches, data sovereignty, and next-generation model architectures—areas he described as essential to ensuring strategic autonomy and long-term competitiveness.
Building institutions for scale
To anchor AI transformation within the public sector and national industry, Türkiye has created new institutional frameworks. These include the Directorate General for National Technology and Artificial Intelligence within the Ministry of Industry and Technology, and the Directorate General for Public Artificial Intelligence under the Presidency of Cybersecurity. According to Yılmaz, these bodies will coordinate policy, foster cross-sector adoption, and help ensure that innovation translates into measurable economic and social outcomes.
Language, data, and sovereign capability
A cornerstone of the plan is ensuring Turkish is strongly represented in AI systems and large language models. Yılmaz framed this as a strategic priority tied to cultural presence, digital sovereignty, and better performance for local users and institutions.
“We see the strong representation of Turkish in artificial intelligence models as a strategic issue. For this reason, we attach great importance to Turkish large language model initiatives,” he said.
Beyond language, the government aims to catalyze domestic AI solutions trained on locally sourced data and tailored to national needs—especially in strategic industries. This approach is meant to reinforce data sovereignty while creating high-value, domain-specific systems that reflect Türkiye’s regulatory, linguistic, and market realities.
From pilots to productivity
Türkiye is promoting AI adoption across healthcare, finance, education, and telecommunications. The objective is twofold: lift economic productivity and expand social benefits. By encouraging real-world deployments alongside R&D, officials hope to move quickly from pilot projects to scalable platforms and services that improve public service delivery and business competitiveness.
R&D and ecosystem growth
Yılmaz said research and development will remain a central focus as the country advances its National Technology Initiative and seeks a stronger foothold in the global AI landscape. Investments in compute, data infrastructure, and talent development are intended to feed a virtuous cycle—enabling more ambitious model training, higher-quality datasets, and greater commercialization potential.
What to watch in the new action plan
- Human capital: Scholarships, training, and upskilling programs to grow the AI talent pipeline.
- High-performance computing: Expanded compute capacity to support large-scale model development and advanced research.
- Data ecosystems: Standards and platforms to securely share, govern, and utilize high-quality datasets.
- Sector-specific applications: Targeted solutions in strategic areas like healthcare, finance, education, and telecom.
- Governance: Clear mechanisms for safety, accountability, and alignment with national priorities.
Looking ahead, Yılmaz expressed hope that the AI Tomorrow Summit 2026 would seed new ideas, collaborations, and partnerships that align with the country’s long-term goals. With a renewed action plan and a growing institutional backbone, Türkiye aims to convert recent momentum into durable gains—anchoring AI as a driver of innovation, resilience, and international competitiveness.
