Minister of Communications and Information Technology Raafat Hendi said on Saturday, September 26, 2026, that nearly 200,000 specialists are working to export digital services from Egypt to countries around the world. Hendy added that Egypt’s engineers, developers and technology experts are a major reason international companies are expanding their operations in the country.
He made the remarks while opening the ninth DevOpsDays Cairo 2026 conference at the Creativa Innovation Hub in Giza. Hendy stated that the Ministry is working to increase the number of skilled technology professionals and strengthen Egypt’s position as a major source of technology talent in the Arab region and Africa.
The Minister also discussed the rapid changes in software development caused by artificial intelligence. AI systems are increasingly being used to write and test code, analyze performance and perform tasks with greater independence. He noted that this shift raises questions about human oversight, accountability, cybersecurity, energy use, computing resources and costs.
Additionally, Hendi said that Egypt is expanding digital government services for millions of citizens, increasing the need for reliable and scalable digital infrastructure. He pointed to the recent launch of Karnak, a large language model developed by Egyptian engineers that can understand Modern Standard Arabic and Egyptian Arabic.
The conference is organized by the Software Engineering Competence Center (SECC), part of the Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA), and focuses this year on DevOps in the age of Agentic AI. ITIDA CEO Ahmed el Zaher said that the ninth edition includes 66 speakers, including 13 international speakers from nine countries.
The conference also features a competition on using DevOps and AI to accelerate automation and innovation. A total of 142 teams applied, with 20 teams reaching the final stage. It is noteworthy that DevOpsDays conferences are held in more than 60 cities worldwide.