The Turkey National Artificial Intelligence Strategy (2021-2025)

Executive Summary

The National Artificial Intelligence Strategy (NAIS) was prepared in line with the Eleventh Development Plan and the Presidential Annual Program for 2021. The Strategy determines the measures that will put our country’s efforts in the domain of artificial intelligence (AI) on a common ground between the years 2021-2025 and the governance mechanism that will be established to implement these measures.

NAIS was prepared by the Digital Transformation Office of the Presidency of the Republic of Turkey (DTO) and the Ministry of Industry and Technology (MoIT) in accordance with “Measure 473.1” in the Presidential Annual Program 2021. NAIS is of an exploratory nature since it is the first national strategy of our country in this field and due to the rapid development of AI and the development of strategies in other countries over time. The strategic priorities, objectives, measures, and governance mechanism determined in this context have been designed to respond to the opportunities, risks and uncertainties that may arise for our country over time.

As part of NAIS preparations, interviews were conducted with public institutions, universities, private sector organizations, NGOs, and international organizations on physical and online platforms, workshops were held and domain experts of different disciplines were asked to provide their evaluations. In this framework, the Strategy was finalized by taking into account the global trends shaped by the paradigm shift in economic and social life that emerged due to AI, as well as the recent situation and development goals of our country. In this context, the vision of NAIS was determined as: creating value on a global scale with an agile and sustainable AI ecosystem for a prosperous Turkey In order to realize this vision, NAIS was designed around 6 strategic priorities in line with both national policies and needs along with the AI strategy recommendations of international organizations.

Within the framework of these strategic priorities, 24 objectives and 119 measures were identified. These objectives and measures outline the actions that the implementing institutions will determine in detail. The priorities of the NAIS, as well as the objectives and measures determined in this context, have been designed in harmony with our country’s vision of “Digital Turkey” and the “National Technology Initiative”.

As the domain of AI technologies expands, the compliance pressure on individual habits, ways of doing business, professions, and institutional structures triggers a radical transformation in the socioeconomic structure. Although it is clear that this transformation has started and will continue to accelerate, the means and speed of the interaction of this transformation with existing social, institutional, and economic structures is unclear. Therefore, it is inevitable that a long-term national strategy to be determined in the field of AI, where such uncertainties exist, is to be based on the creation of an ecosystem that tries, discovers, learns and constantly updates itself accordingly. Moreover, in order to adapt Turkey’s socioeconomic structure to rapid developments in the field of AI, it is necessary to act prudently enough not to make major mistakes on the one hand, and act quickly enough to take advantage of opportunities on the other. In this regard, the structure of NAIS is suitable for both experimenting and implementing, and it aims to create an agile and sustainable ecosystem that can manage the transformation in the socioeconomic structure and reduce the possible inefficiencies in the functioning of this ecosystem as much as possible. Due to the above-mentioned uncertainties and the ongoing dynamic process, it will be necessary to review the needs, possibilities and opportunities and shape the steps accordingly during the implementation period of the NAIS. It is observed that other countries have updated their strategy documents in the process due to similar needs. Due to all these reasons, the common points in NAIS and the guides envisaged to be prepared in this context are living and constantly evolving references.

The focus of NAIS is on strategic compliance and end-to-end governance, which will have repercussions at the inter-institutional and internal level, with competence areas consisting of quality data, advanced skills and technical infrastructure. Thanks to the measures to be implemented, it is aimed to create value from data through AI applications at institutions and at the sectoral level, to carry out AI projects effectively, and to increase the maturity level of our country’s AI ecosystem within this framework. 

In line with this main focus and objectives; 

• Employment of researchers and practitioners to develop institutional competencies in the field of AI will be supported throughout all public organizations, especially in central public institutions, as well as the private sector and universities. Efforts to increase the quality and quantity of employment in the field of AI by enriching the training content, including the existing online platforms, will be carried out with the private sector, relevant NGOs, and universities. Professional definitions and competencies will be determined for the development of skills in the field of AI. With new undergraduate, graduate, and supporting research programs to be launched at universities, the number of new graduates with domain-specific competencies will be increased. Incentives for increasing scientific productivity in the field of AI will be improved. Thematic programs in which pre-higher education students will receive training on algorithmic and critical thinking, ethics, and AI applications will be generalized. 

• Steps will be taken to increase the number and quality of initiatives operating in the field of AI. In this context, cooperation with entrepreneurial networks, technology development, innovation, and incubation centers will be strengthened. Activation of AI-oriented venture capital (VC) funds will be prioritized. In this direction, public incentives and supports given specifically to the field will be improved. Interdisciplinary projects will be brought to the fore by establishing clusters and centers of excellence where advanced R&D activities can be carried out.

• Administrative, legal, and technical works on easy access to quality data, which is essential for AI projects and activities, and secure data sharing between institutions and sectors will be carried out. Testing and implementation processes of AI products and services will be improved through infrastructures that are in operation and those that will be newly established for high-performance computing, ready platforms, data storage, rapid transmission, and secure sharing. The capacity of existing R&D centers will be improved, and commercialization processes will be accelerated by emphasizing collaborations with public institutions and organizations, the private sector and universities. Thanks to the Open Government Data Portal and the National Data Dictionary, the data quality of public institutions will be increased and anonymized datasets will be produced and shared. A “Public Data Space” will be established to ensure secure data governance among public institutions. In order to generate more value from this data, activities that support external participation and develop the open-source ecosystem will be carried out.

• Research will be carried out to ensure the adaptation of administrative and legal regulations to AI-induced socioeconomic transformation and to evaluate its possible consequences beforehand. Activities addressing ethical and legal aspects of AI applications will be carried out, and international studies in this field will be followed. By creating regulatory sandboxes and testbeds, initiatives will be facilitated in the development, testing, and commercialization processes. Data capacity will be improved to better understand and track transformation dynamics.

• Our country will be ensured to participate actively in reliable and responsible AI studies carried out at the international level. In addition, activities will be carried out to launch international projects in our country, and cooperation with international organizations will be supported. Participation in projects with cross-border calls, particularly the multi-annual financial frameworks of the European Union and the Union Programs within this scope, will be encouraged.

• Structural and workforce transformation of public institutions and private sector organizations will be supported in line with the developments in the domain of AI. AI Maturity Model and AI Project Management Guide will be prepared to accelerate the structural transformation and put it on a healthy footing. With the Public AI Platform to be offered as a service, the pre-implementation preparation process and experience transfer will be facilitated. It will be ensured to create problem pools and identify usage scenarios for both public institutions and the private sector. The Trustworthy AI Seal approach will be tested to encourage the use of reference models in application development and operation. Considering the new professions emerging with AI, training and certification programs for the existing workforce will be carried out with sectoral collaborations.

The action plans to be implemented within the scope of the measures outlined above will be prepared by the responsible public institutions under the coordination of the DTO and the MoIT. A two-layered governance mechanism has been established in order to effectively implement the measures and action plans to be prepared within the scope of NAIS. The first layer will coordinate strategically, while the second layer will coordinate at the administrative and technical levels. In the first layer, high-level coordination and decision-making mechanisms are involved, while the technical and administrative mechanisms for the effective design and execution of the works to be implemented in accordance with the NAIS will be created in the second layer.

On the other hand, two different AI development environments will be established for public institutions and organizations and the common use of the AI ecosystem. In this context, the “Public AI Ecosystem” to be implemented under the coordination of the Digital Transformation Office Department of Big Data and AI Applications, will ensure following and supporting AI and advanced analytics projects of central and local government institutions and organizations in line with the guidelines to be prepared.

In addition, under the coordination of the MoIT General Directorate of National Technology Department of Digital Technologies; “Sectoral Co-Creation Laboratories” will be established within the TÜBİTAK Artificial Intelligence Institute for the common use of the AI ecosystem. These laboratories, which will be expanded in line with the needs, will support institutions with infrastructure and data spaces to be provided for them so that multi-stakeholder sectoral AI applications can be developed and tested. The laboratories will facilitate institutions defining problems, creating usage scenarios, sharing and annotating data, and meeting with domain experts and industry representatives.

In this document, the definitions of the concepts and related technologies in the field of AI are also included in the Annex in order to establish a common language in terms of the concepts used.

The high-level objectives foreseen to be reached in 2025, which is the end of the implementation period of NAIS, are as below:

• The contribution of AI to GDP will be raised to 5%.

• Employment in the field of AI will be increased to 50,000 people.

• Employment in the field of AI in central and local government institutions and organizations will be increased to 1,000 people.

• The number of graduate-level diploma holders in the field of AI will be increased to 10,000.

• AI applications developed by the local ecosystem will be prioritized in public procurement and commercialization will be supported.

• The regulatory studies and standardization processes of international organizations in the field of reliable and responsible AI and cross-border data sharing will be contributed to actively.

• It will be ensured that Turkey ranks among the top 20 countries in international AI indices.