Türkiye aims to see 100,000 startups founded by 2030 and to raise the combined valuation of its "Turcorns," the country's billion-dollar startups, to $100 billion, Industry and Technology Minister Mehmet Fatih Kacır said on Friday.
"We aim to have 100,000 startups established in Türkiye by 2030 and to raise the total valuation of our Turcorns to $100 billion," Kacır told the GO! GLOBAL Türkiye Summit 2026.
The event was organized by the Türkiye-U.S. Business Council's Digital Working Group at the Foreign Economic Relations Board (DEIK) with Endeavor Türkiye. It focused on Türkiye's technology entrepreneurship ecosystem, global investment opportunities and goals in advanced technology.
Kacır said Türkiye is working to become a global center for technology, entrepreneurship and investment. He said annual research and development spending has risen over the past 20 years from $1.2 billion to about $20 billion, and R&D's share of national income from 0.5% to 1.46%.
He said advances in artificial intelligence, biotechnology, semiconductors and quantum technologies are reshaping global competition, value chains and traditional sources of competitive advantage.
Kacır said more than 13,000 technology companies operate in Türkiye's 115 technology parks, and thousands of researchers and engineers work in more than 1,700 R&D and design centers. He added that Türkiye is the world's 11th-largest defense exporter.
Startup support, data centers
Kacır pointed to Togg, Türkiye's national electric carmaker, as a concrete example of this vision. He said more than 120,000 Togg vehicles have been put on the road so far.
He said the BiGG program is Türkiye's largest public support mechanism for pre-seed and seed-stage technology startups, and has helped set up about 2,700 technology ventures.
Kacır said artificial intelligence is among the government's highest priorities, and that Türkiye wants to be a country that develops AI technologies and exports them to global markets.
The Türkiye AI Action Plan has 16 priority actions, he said. Within two years, the government aims to train 10,000 advanced AI specialists and 100,000 AI application professionals, and to give AI literacy training to 5 million citizens.
On data centers, he said the goal is to raise installed capacity to at least 1 gigawatt by 2030, which would require mobilising at least $10 billion of investment.
He said $3 billion in public support has been set aside for data center and AI investments under HIT-30, the government's high-technology investment program.
Kacır said Türkiye offers global investors its strategic location, growth, large domestic market and skilled workforce. The economy has grown by more than 5% a year on average over the past 20 years, he said, and the country has more than 86 million people and about 23 million primary, secondary and university students.
He said Türkiye added about 8 gigawatts of electricity generation capacity last year, and aims to add 8 to 10 gigawatts of renewable capacity each year for the next decade.