Turkey plans to establish the “National Artificial Intelligence Council” to set national priorities in the field, direct investments, and address coordination problems between institutions. According to information obtained by Anadolu Agency, this is part of the governance objectives in the “Turkey Artificial Intelligence Action Plan” for the 2026–2030 period, coordinated by the Ministry of Industry and Technology.
The council is expected to operate under the chairmanship of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, with the participation of ministries and affiliated or related entities. It will be the highest decision-making and coordinating body on matters of strategy, priority-setting, resource allocation, and risk and ethics principles. It will also approve national priorities and annual implementation plans, address jurisdictional obstacles and disputes between institutions, and direct government investments and major projects within the artificial intelligence ecosystem.
Four Functions for Managing the Plan
The proposed governance structure is based on four pillars: strategic direction and coordination, implementation monitoring, ethical guidance, and technical security assessment. The council is scheduled to issue an “Annual National Artificial Intelligence Policy Statement” each year to clarify the policy direction for the public and investors.
The General Directorate of National Technology and Artificial Intelligence at the Ministry of Industry and Technology will carry out the council’s secretariat duties, including preparing action-based progress reports and monitoring performance indicators linked to decisions.
Program Office and Transparency Portal
The plan includes establishing a “Program Office” to prepare annual implementation plans, convert actions into projects, monitor their completion, and operate the “National Artificial Intelligence Progress and Transparency Portal.” The General Directorate of Government Artificial Intelligence, affiliated with the Presidency of Cybersecurity, will also participate in the office to coordinate artificial intelligence applications in public institutions.
For each action, a matrix will be prepared identifying the responsible institution and the entities that must be held accountable, consulted, or informed. The matrix will distinguish between the roles of decision-making, implementation, technical assessment, ethical guidance, legislative compliance, budget allocation, and monitoring.
The portal is expected to display, for each action, the responsible institution, sub-tasks, timeline, budget execution, objectives and indicators, and implementation status in green, yellow, or red. Action dependencies and the critical path will also be shown. Personal data and trade secrets will be excluded, while internal management dashboards will be protected through role-based permissions.
Ethics Council with Advisory Powers
Turkey also plans to establish the “National Artificial Intelligence Ethics Council” within one year. It will include representatives from the public and private sectors, academia, and civil society organizations, and will prepare practical guidelines on fairness and bias, explainability, data provenance, security and robustness, and human oversight.
Artificial intelligence applications directed at children and vulnerable groups will be among the council’s priorities. It will also review citizens’ and users’ requests and refer them to the relevant institutions within specified time limits. However, its role will remain advisory and evaluative; binding supervisory powers and the authority to impose sanctions will remain with sectoral regulatory authorities, while respecting the jurisdiction of judicial institutions in applications affecting judicial functions.
Why Does This News Matter?
The proposed real change is not the launch of an artificial intelligence application, but the construction of an institutional layer for managing policies, investments, and risks. Responsibility matrices and the public portal may give investors and citizens a means of comparing progress, but they do not by themselves prove that the plan will produce effective implementation. Details concerning the council’s formation, mechanisms for obligating institutions, actual performance indicators, and the extent of overlap between the ethics council and regulatory authorities will remain points requiring monitoring when the official decisions are issued.