Morocco prepares for future with five-year digital plan

In September last year the Moroccan government unveiled its “Digital Morocco 2030” strategy at a ceremony in Rabat. The strategy includes several major goals aimed at leveraging the power of technology to modernise Morocco’s public services and further the North African country’s economic and development plans. Among the aims outlined in the strategy include accelerating “eGovernment” services, positioning Morocco as a leading African tech hub and attracting higher foreign direct investment flows as a result, as well as fostering the growth of Morocco’s start-up ecosystem.

Shortly after this announcement, in October, Amal El Fallah Seghrouchini was confirmed as Morocco’s new minister for digital transformation and administrative reform. Seghrouchini, who previously served as the executive president of Morocco’s International Center for Artificial Intelligence, has been tasked with putting AI at the heart of Morocco’s digitalisation and growth strategy.

Speaking to African Business in Rabat, Seghrouchini says that “we have two basic goals – succeeding in the digital transition and reforming Morocco’s administration. For me, AI is absolutely crucial to both. Today, you cannot bring about the digital transition without AI.”

Seghrouchini sees AI technology as fundamental to democratising access to Morocco’s public services and boosting development outcomes. One obstacle to engaging with state services has traditionally been poor literacy. Morocco’s illiteracy rate has declined in recent years but still stood at 24.8% in 2024, with illiteracy levels higher in rural areas at 38%.

“Generative AI is very helpful in many settings. Rather than depending on reading or writing messages [to public services], people could use their phone to record voice messages which can then be transcribed using AI,” she says. “To reform Moroccan administration, we need to simplify citizens’ access to services – and to do that, we need tools that can speak to people who otherwise would be left out. This use of generative AI is very helpful for this and can also reduce the gap between rural and urban areas.”

Cultural concern

Digitalisation and the rise of AI have been met with concern in many parts of the world – with African citizens particularly fearful about AI’s disruptive potential. One common fear is that this revolutionary new technology could undermine traditional cultures and ways of life.

However, Seghrouchini believes that the opposite is true. “We’ve signed an agreement with the Moroccan National Library [to collaborate on digitalisation]. In Morocco and in Africa in general, the culture is transmitted verbally. Therefore, to preserve this, we need to record what is transmitted on digital platforms.”

“We also have a lot of material that we cannot use – documents that have disintegrated over time. You also find swathes of material in rural areas that nobody has used,” she adds.

By digitalising all of these documents and making them publicly accessible on digital platforms, Seghrouchini hopes the next generation will be better able to engage with Morocco’s cultural artefacts.

Transitioning from a paper-based to a digital society will also improve the efficiency of the Moroccan government, Seghrouchini notes. “One example of this is birth certificates. We have 30m physical documents, most of which are very badly written and therefore very difficult to process,” she explains.

“We are using machine learning to process these documents and introduce digitalisation into this important administrative area. With machine learning, we have achieved about 88% accuracy – the rest you have to fine-tune or finish automatically. But this is one way we’re seeking to digitalise the administration.”

Seghrouchini is convinced that the benefits of digitalisation and AI technology are clear both in modernising the Moroccan government – which has partnered with UNESCO to train 5,000 civil servants in these digital strategies – and achieving the country’s broader growth and development goals.

Continuing challenges

However, challenges remain. Perhaps the biggest is getting the relevant infrastructure in place – which is why the Moroccan government is dedicating considerable resources to enhancing the country’s technological infrastructure, with the wider aim of positioning Morocco as a continental leader in this space.

There have been some positive moves in this direction. “Lloyds Capital [an investment firm] has proposed to build a data centre in northern Morocco, in the region of Tangier – a $16.6bn project that would potentially include Nvidia and other stakeholders,” Seghrouchini says.

“Oracle has already opened a research and development centre in Casablanca – they have 1300 Moroccans working for them on offshoring solutions,” she adds. “We are also in very advanced talks with DG Connect [a directorate-general or department of the European Commission] with the aim of bringing an AI factory to Morocco,” Seghrouchini tells African Business. “We hope this will be finalised very soon.”

“I want to have at least three data centres in Morocco – one in the north, one in Benguérir, and one in Dakhla in the south. These factors would more than cover Morocco’s needs and allow us to provide some services to African and European countries,” she says.

“Today in Africa we have less than 1% of the world’s data centre capacity. If Morocco can provide 2% or 3% – that would be big progress.”

Seghrouchini hopes that Morocco will increasingly emerge as a continental leader in the AI space, pointing out that the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has already selected Morocco as the “Arab-African Centre of AI”. Along with investing in infrastructure, Seghrouchini believes that attracting talent is another key element in this.

Recalling the diaspora

Part of this is encouraging Moroccan diaspora populations to come home. “We do not know why – perhaps it is because of the pandemic or because of the political situation in Europe – but there is a growing trend of Moroccans abroad coming back to Morocco, Seghrouchini tells African Business.

“We see this as a big opportunity for diaspora populations to come back and participate in our economic and digital development – and to help us develop as a society too.”

Seghrouchini says the government is also looking at other ways to attract the next generation of digital talent. “I visited Estonia recently and was very impressed by the concept of e-residency,” she says. “In Morocco, we work with a lot of people from across Africa – and for AI, we need people to provide facilities in computing, storage, and developing services.”

“In the digital and post-Covid world, more people want to stay at home and work remotely. With e-residency, you could have more people from across Africa easily accessing the Moroccan market, and vice-versa.”

Seghrouchini is optimistic that such initiatives will allow the Moroccan government to leverage the potential of AI to achieve the two core goals she has been set: furthering the digital transition and reforming Morocco’s administration.

She also believes that, partly because of the government’s strong support for this emerging industry, Morocco is well poised to attract significant amounts of private capital to support these endeavours.

“Morocco is one of the most stable countries, politically speaking. I think that Morocco will provide a very good model for how to use digital tools for development – an example for Africa, the Arab world, and beyond,” Seghrouchini says.