TEHRAN – Iran Digital, a national program, aims to teach artificial intelligence (AI) to four million students free of charge in the next Iranian calendar year, which will begin on March 21, an official with the Ministry of Education has said.

Supported by the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology and the Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology, the first phase of the initiative was launched in June 2025.

Since then, two million students have joined the program to master AI from introductory courses to programming, ISNA quoted Seyyed Ali Hosseini as saying.

Moreover, more than one thousand teachers are learning AI, attending both online and virtual training sessions. In the next four months, the Ministry of Education, in cooperation with Sharif University of Technology, will train 200,000 teachers, Hosseini noted.

Currently, a total of 16 million students are studying in the country. Throughout the seventh National Development Plan (2023-2027), the Ministry of Education has to complete teaching AI to two million students. These include elementary, junior high school, as well as senior high school students. However, 80 percent of the current students learning AI are from junior high schools, he added.

To motivate students and teachers, a variety of incentives are considered. The Iran Digital platform is game-based and interactive, and the incentives include holding seasonal competitions, ranking top individuals in different geographical areas, and awarding prizes. The top individuals will also have the chance to participate in advanced courses.

The official went on to say that the Ministry of Education is pursuing two main goals in the education sector. The first focuses on teaching AI to students and teachers, and the second one will equip schools with the latest digital devices.

According to Abdolhossein Bahrami, an official with the Vice Presidency for Science, Technology, and Knowledge-Based Economy, boosting digital literacy will prepare students for future job markets, help them develop their critical thinking, and become familiar with emerging technologies; it will also foster creativity and innovation among students.

Science ministry finalizes AI action plan

The Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology has announced the finalization of an artificial intelligence action plan, which highlights the pivotal role of AI in the country’s scientific advancement.

The plan has been developed in cooperation with the Vice Presidency for Science, Technology, and Knowledge-Based Economy, IRNA reported.

The action plan was unveiled during a meeting held on December 3, 2025, with the presence of First Vice-President, Mohammad-Reza Aref.

The main pillars of the action plan include ‘transformation in education and training human resources, ‘empowering research and innovation capacity building’, ‘promoting and commercializing AI’, ‘expanding science diplomacy and international cooperation’, and ‘improving the scientific status of the country’.

Empowering research and innovation capacity building involves the establishment of five national laboratories in selected universities, development of interdisciplinary majors at post-graduate programs focusing on AI, the inclusion of ‘AI and digital transformation’ for undergraduate students, essential for engineering majors, and supplementary for other majors.

Promoting and commercializing AI focuses on selecting and supporting a number of universities as the country’s AI research and development center. Supporting the development of at least 3 fundamental AI models (including language vision models) based on domestic data, and launching a platform to collect and share research and educational data in a secure way.

Expanding science diplomacy and international cooperation highlights expediting the formation and growth of AI startups and holding AI competitions.

Expanding science diplomacy and international cooperation involves enhancing educational and research collaborations with top universities from Shanghai and BRICS member states, as well as members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).

Cooperation on AI regulations, standardization, and collaboration with Iranian elites and experts living abroad are among other goals.

Improving the scientific standing of the country underlines maintaining and improving the country’s international ranking in AI, indexing at least 8 specialized journals in the first and second quartiles, increasing support for top researchers and patents, as well as strengthening scientific associations and national AI networking.

MT/MG