Today, the EU and the Kingdom of Morocco strengthened their relationship as strategic partners in the digital field by launching the EU-Morocco Digital Dialogue. This Digital Dialogue reflects a shared vision to unlock the potential of digital, data and artificial intelligence (AI) solutions, supporting a digital economy and society at the service of people. It will enable cooperation in areas such as AI, support for digital start-ups, secure and trusted digital infrastructure, as well as interoperability of public digital infrastructure solutions such as the digital wallets. The Dialogue was launched by Henna Virkkunen, Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy and Amal El Fallah Seghrouchni, Minister Delegate in charge of Digital Transition and Administrative Reform.

The EU-Morocco Digital Dialogue will focus, among other things, on:

• Facilitating the rollout of secure, trusted digital networks and infrastructure to support cooperation in areas such as AI and Digital Public Infrastructure.
• Exchanging best practices and supporting the deployment of AI compute infrastructures, as well as the ecosystems around it.
• Establishing advanced cooperation between Moroccan AI research institutes and EU AI Factories, including by facilitating cooperation on research and innovation projects, resource and knowledge sharing.
• Exchanging and strengthening collaboration in e-Governance and Digital Public Infrastructure, including work towards interoperability between EU and Moroccan solutions and frameworks.
• Supporting start-ups to come forward with relevant solutions that respond to business and societal needs.

Alongside the launch of the Digital Dialogue, Executive Vice-President Virkkunen and Minister Seghrouchni signed an administrative arrangement on AI ecosystems for innovation. The first operational implementation of this agreement is taking shape. Four European supercomputing centres (BSC, CINECA, GENCI and LUMI) have signed a letter of intent with Mohammed VI Polytechnic University, which hosts the most powerful supercomputer on the African continent.

This cooperation will build on the successful landing of the Medusa Submarine Cable System in Nador, Morocco, and the ongoing support to the ‘Digital Morocco 2030′ strategy for the rollout of digital public services The Digital Dialogue may also pave the way for the concrete cooperation programmes currently under discussion between the EU and Morocco. These would support the implementation of the ‘Digital Morocco 2030′ strategy, the administrative arrangement signed today, and Morocco’s start-up ecosystem.