Home > Headlines > Morocco Pushes for Tech Independence as Minister Warns Against Digital Dependence
Panel discussion at the 17th MeDays Southern Forum in Tangier today.
Tangier – Morocco cannot build a digital future if it depends entirely on foreign technology, according to the country’s Minister Delegate in charge of Digital Transition and Administrative Reform Amal El Fellah Seghrouchni.
The minister made the statements during a panel at the 17th MeDays Southern Forum in Tangier today.
Seghrouchni laid out the problem: a handful of American and Chinese tech giants control the infrastructure, data, and algorithms that power artificial intelligence across the globe.
“Today, 92% of European data is stored in the United States,” she said. “What does that mean? It means that at some point, we don’t control anything anymore. Neither the infrastructure, nor the data, nor the algorithms.”
Technological sovereignty has shifted: States used to control their territory, population, and decisions. Now algorithms cross borders without passports. “Do the algorithms need passports or visas to go from one country to another? No,” she said. “So the territories open up.”
This creates dependency. Countries that lack GPUs cannot run AI algorithms. Countries without massive data centers cannot store their own information. Countries that don’t develop their own models must rely on systems built elsewhere.
Seghrouchni traced how AI evolved from small expert systems on single machines to today’s massive language models that scrape the entire web. ChatGPT and similar systems now process all internet data. “All the internet is in ChatGPT … “it continues to feed all the data that you show in your web navigation.”
Modern AI needs rare materials and specialized chips. “If you don’t have the GPU, you can’t run artificial intelligence algorithms,” Seghrouchni said. “And so there is a new technological sovereignty.” She pointed to the US Chips Act as proof that countries now compete for control over these components.
For Africa, the question becomes urgent: “Just us, as Africans, what are we capable of doing in this great geostrategic struggle that is linked to technology?”
Morocco responds through its Digital Morocco 2030 strategy, which King Mohammed VI has championed. The strategy rests on two pillars: digitalization of the economy and digitalization of administrative services.
The country focuses on four areas: artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, the Internet of Things, and digital infrastructure. But Seghrouchni said Morocco must secure the entire AI value chain — from hardware to data to algorithms to deployment to predictions.
“All these steps are vulnerable,” she said. “You can create vulnerabilities at each step.”
She recalled the recent security breaches – including the incident of exploding beepers and the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Morocco itself suffered a hack where confidential files of senior officials circulated on the darknet. “When you don’t protect, you have situations like that,” she said.
Morocco now builds what Seghrouchni calls “Administration X.0” — a concept that will soon become law. The framework creates an administration that meets security and sovereignty requirements while delivering electronic services to citizens 24/7.
The country is significantly investing in sovereign infrastructure; Morocco announced a 500-megawatt data center in Dakhla and a 50-megawatt facility in Rabat. The Rabat center will operate as a sovereign cloud. The Dakhla facility will serve as a “data embassy” to store and secure data from Morocco and Sahel countries.
“We have imagined building a trustworthy AI for a trustworthy digital transition,” Seghrouchni said. The approach relies on hybrid sovereign cloud systems, interoperable data, and open APIs.
AI cuts both ways in cybersecurity: as data from Kaspersky shows that AI-powered systems detected 25% more threats in the first half of 2024. But 46% of global threats now use artificial intelligence as a weapon, Seghrouchni said.
“We went from automatic systems to autonomous systems,” she explained.
Machines now process billions of parameters and make decisions that humans cannot comprehend. “After seven criteria, the human loses his cognition. He doesn’t know what to choose anymore.”
This autonomy creates risks. AI can manipulate data to reach predetermined conclusions. Disinformation, deepfakes, and fake news twist how people understand their environment and politics. “You have populations that are vulnerable, that believe almost everything we tell them,” Seghrouchni noted.
The minister urged young researchers not to abandon their work even if it seems ahead of its time. She earned her PhD in 2000 on multi-agent systems — work that now powers today’s agentic AI.
“It took 25 years for it to happen a little bit in the industry,” she said. “When you believe in something, think, stay there, develop.”
Speaking to media on the sidelines of the roundtable, Seghrouchni said the conference featured about 40 startups presenting their technological products, ranging from AI-powered jewelry to digital coaches and tourism platforms. Legal tech companies also participated.
Morocco supports startups through multiple initiatives. At the upcoming Gitex conference in April, the country will host 300 startups.
“The accompaniment means that we offer this space, logistics that allow them to come for two or three days to exhibit their products, dialogue with speakers, people, participants, and then possibly make deals, place orders,” Seghrouchni explained.
She said Moroccan startups will export quality technology to the Arab-African world through the Digital for Sustainable Development (D4SD) initiative. The UN recognized Morocco as an Arab-African digital hub specializing in artificial intelligence and data science.
“I think that our Moroccan startup is well on its way, that we will be able to export very, very good tech to the Arab-African world,” Seghrouchni noted.
Morocco positions itself as a bridge between Europe and Africa in shaping digital governance. The country works to balance technological progress with data protection and cybersecurity.
Meryem Kassou of Digitis Consulting moderated the roundtable, which brought together government officials, tech entrepreneurs, and policy experts to examine how nations can preserve sovereignty while adopting new technologies.
For Africa, Seghrouchni’s message was clear: the continent must build its own technological capacity or risk becoming dependent on foreign powers that control the digital infrastructure of the future.
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