A still photo of Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly addressing a ceremony for the inspection of the equipment used in the Sinai development and reconstruction process in Ismailia governorate on Sunday
This came during his speech at a ceremony held in Ismailia governorate where President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi inspected equipment used in the development and reconstruction of Sinai.
The prime minister said the state has incorporated the most up-to-date artificial intelligence (AI) programmes to assess world opinion on Sinai, citing the use of ChatGPT to simulate and generate news stories, as well as data that would help answer all inquiries on Sinai.
ChatGPT is an AI chatbot auto-generative system created by Open AI for a language model approach to transfer learning using both supervised and reinforcement learning techniques.
The model is currently limited to data up until September 2021.
So far, it has been unavailable in Egypt, but users have been accessing it through virtual private networks.
Madbouly said among the questions that were posed to the AI was a question that required a one word answer: Is there a place similar to Sinai in any other part of the world? The answer was “no.”
The prime minister referred to another question on nature in Sinai, with the answer coming back as "fascinating."
He highlighted the state's vision on linking all parts of Sinai – known as the Land of Turquoise – as it is part and parcel of Egypt.
Road network and development projects
The prime minister referred to the great progress in developing Sinai’s road, saying that they increased from 674 kilometres to 3,000 kilometres between 2014 and 2022.
He also pointed to the construction of five new tunnels beneath the Suez Canal, linking Sinai Peninsula with the rest of Egypt.
This includes the Ahmed Hamdi II tunnel, linking Sinai with the Nile Delta, that was inaugurated in 2021, as well as two tunnels in Ismailiya and two in Port Said that were inaugurated in 2019.
Madbouly also referred to the increase in revenues from the Suez Canal from $5 to 8 billion after the inauguration of the new expansion.
Madbouly talked about the development of Sharm El-Sheikh, Bardawil, Taba and Tor airports as well as dry and sea ports.
As many as 20 sanitation projects were established at a cost of EGP 4 billion, Madbouly said, adding that the capacity of the power grid was increased by 420 megawatts.
The prime minister said investments in the petroleum and gas sectors in Sinai hit EGP 18 billion.
He added that four new cities were established in Sinai with 50,000 housing units at a cost of EGP 18 billion.
He said 151 schools for basic education in Sinai were developed serving more than 168,000 students, adding that class capacity does not exceed 29 students. Meanwhile, the number of universities reached eight, including three state-owned and five non-governmental ones.
Madbouly said 50 hospitals and medical centres were developed at a cost of EGP 4 billion.
He pointed to the miracle of land reclamation in Sinai, saying two major projects are now being carried out to pump water to increase the size of the cultivated area.
Before 2014, there were 224,000 feddans under cultivation in Sinai but after the completion of the two projects the number will jump to 675,000 feddans.
Madbouly said an opinion poll showed great satisfaction among residents of Sinai with the government’s development efforts
He referred to President Abdel-Fattah El Sisi's directives to make optimum use of black sand deposits in Sinai, whose reserves are estimated at one billion tons.
He added that 13 million tons of precious metals are buried in Sinai lands and the state is doing the utmost to extract them.
At the end, Madbouly said the state will double its efforts to link Sinai with the rest of Egypt.
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