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Morocco Aims for $10 Billion AI Boost to GDP by 2030

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Morocco has set an ambitious target to add 100 billion dirhams—around $10 billion—to its gross domestic product through artificial intelligence by 2030, as part of a broader push to modernize its digital economy. Speaking at a conference in Rabat, Digital Transition Minister Amal El Fallah Seghrouchni outlined a strategy focused on infrastructure, talent development, and regulatory reform.

With current GDP estimated at roughly $170 billion, Morocco sees AI as a key growth lever. The plan centers on expanding domestic data-processing capacity through sovereign data centres, scaling up cloud services and fibre-optic networks, and embedding AI solutions across public administration and industry. According to the minister, these efforts are expected to generate 50,000 AI-related jobs and equip 200,000 graduates with AI skills by the end of the decade.

A core pillar of the strategy is investment in AI centres connected to universities and private-sector partners, designed to accelerate research, innovation, and commercial deployment. As part of this push, Morocco signed a partnership agreement with France-based Mistral AI to support the development of generative AI tools tailored to local needs.

The government is also preparing a legal framework to govern artificial intelligence, signaling an effort to balance innovation with oversight. For the near term, Morocco has earmarked 11 billion dirhams ($1.2 billion) for its digital transformation strategy covering 2024–2026, which includes AI initiatives and nationwide fibre-optic expansion.

Separately, Rabat plans to build a 500-megawatt data centre powered by renewable energy in Dakhla, aimed at strengthening data security and national digital sovereignty. Officials say the project underscores Morocco’s ambition to position itself as a regional hub for AI and data science in Africa.

Google Plans Secretive AI Data Centre on Strategic Christmas Island

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Google is planning to build a powerful artificial intelligence data centre on Australia’s remote Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean, according to documents and local officials cited by Reuters — a move that could transform the tiny outpost into a crucial node for both digital infrastructure and defence strategy.

The project, not previously disclosed, follows Google’s cloud deal with Australia’s Department of Defence signed earlier this year. While the exact cost, size, and purpose of the facility remain undisclosed, military analysts say such a data hub could be pivotal for monitoring Chinese naval operations in the Indian Ocean and supporting AI-driven defence systems.

Located about 350 kilometers south of Indonesia, Christmas Island has increasingly drawn attention from defence planners. Former U.S. Navy strategist Bryan Clark said the proposed facility could serve as a “command and control” hub in any regional crisis, especially for managing AI-enabled uncrewed systems used in surveillance or targeting.

“Subsea cables offer more reliability than satellites,” Clark explained. “If you’ve got a data centre on Christmas Island, you can do a lot of that through cloud infrastructure.”

Google has reportedly applied for environmental approval to install a subsea cable linking Christmas Island to Darwin, where U.S. Marines are stationed, with U.S. firm SubCom handling the installation. The link mirrors other military cable projects connecting strategic outposts like Diego Garcia.

Christmas Island Shire President Steve Pereira said local officials are assessing the project’s potential community impact before giving final approval. The island, home to just 1,600 people, has long faced limited job opportunities and weak communications infrastructure.

“There is support for it, provided it brings local employment and real benefits to the community,” Pereira said.

While some residents fear greater militarization could harm tourism, others welcome the economic boost. Analysts note that the location offers unique advantages for both commercial and strategic uses, sitting at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Australia.

Amazon Restores AWS Cloud After Global Outage Disrupts Major Apps and Businesses

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Amazon (AMZN.O) said its AWS cloud services had fully recovered by Monday afternoon following a massive outage that disrupted businesses and websites worldwide, including major platforms such as Snapchat, Reddit, Venmo, and Zoom. While all core systems were back online, Amazon noted that some AWS services still faced a backlog of messages expected to clear within hours.

The outage, which began earlier in the day, briefly knocked thousands of companies offline across Europe, Asia, and the Americas, halting digital payments, travel bookings, and business operations. It was the largest internet disruption since the CrowdStrike crash of 2024, underscoring the fragility of global cloud infrastructure.

According to Amazon, the failure originated in the US-EAST-1 region — AWS’s oldest and largest data center cluster in northern Virginia, which has suffered similar incidents in 2020 and 2021. The root cause was traced to a malfunction in the subsystem monitoring network health for its Elastic Load Balancers, which distribute web traffic across multiple servers.

AWS explained that the issue began within its EC2 internal network, disrupting the Domain Name System (DNS) used to connect services to their databases, including the DynamoDB API, which stores critical user data.

Experts said the incident exposes the world’s dependence on a few dominant cloud providers. “This outage once again highlights the dependency we have on relatively fragile infrastructures,” said Jake Moore, cybersecurity advisor at ESET. Nishanth Sastry, of the University of Surrey, added that the disruption showed “the risk of relying on just one service provider.”

The outage’s ripple effects hit a wide range of sectors. Financial institutions including Lloyds Bank, Bank of Scotland, and HMRC, as well as telecom firms BT and Vodafone, reported temporary downtime in the UK. In the U.S., Coinbase, Robinhood, Perplexity, and Lyft experienced interruptions, while gaming services like Fortnite, Roblox, and Clash Royale also went dark. Even Amazon’s own Prime Video, Alexa, and shopping platform were affected.

Despite the chaos, Wall Street shrugged off the disruption, sending Amazon shares up 1.6% to $216.48 by market close. Experts estimate that hours of cloud downtime can translate into millions of dollars in lost productivity for large companies, a reminder of the growing risks in the digital economy.