Egyptian billionaire Hisham Talaat Moustafa's TMG unveils a $27 billion AI-powered city in east Cairo with underground roads and 165 towers

Egypt's Talaat Moustafa Group announced plans on April 18 to build a $27 billion mixed-use city east of Cairo that its chief executive is calling the first AI-powered cognitive city in Egypt and the Middle East, a project so large that TMG's own CEO says it represents roughly 1% of the country's GDP.

The project, named The Spine, will be built in partnership with the National Bank of Egypt with a paid-up capital of EGP 69 billion ($1.3 billion). The announcement was made at a press conference in the New Administrative Capital attended by Prime Minister Dr. Mostafa Madbouly.

"We are not just building towers, we are building an integrated economic model," CEO and Managing Director Hisham Talaat Moustafa said at the event. "There are projects that are built, and others that change the rules of the game."

What the project is

The Spine stretches across a 5-kilometre corridor within and alongside Madinaty, TMG's flagship community in New Cairo, 12 minutes from the New Administrative Capital. The development covers approximately 2.4 million square metres of land and 3.8 million square metres of built-up area, making it one of the largest privately financed urban projects ever attempted in Egypt.

It will house 165 towers of up to 130 metres for residential, commercial, administrative and hospitality use. More than 70% of the land will be dedicated to green spaces and open areas, while the built environment includes Grade A-plus offices, 3,500 hotel rooms, 565,000 square metres of retail and leisure, and a surface designed entirely for pedestrians. The master plan was developed by OBMI, a global urban design firm.

The feature that separates The Spine from Egypt's growing catalogue of megaprojects is a fully integrated underground logistics and service network described by TMG as the world's first of its kind. The system, developed over 5 years in collaboration with consultancies in China and Singapore, keeps vehicles and freight operations below ground, leaving the surface entirely clear for public life.

The Spine is being established as a Special Investment Zone, offering flexible regulations, simplified procedures and dedicated customs frameworks to attract foreign companies and regional headquarters. TMG says the project is designed to host tens of millions of visitors annually and will partner with Houston Methodist Hospital, one of the United States' largest hospital systems, whose facility is currently under construction in Madinaty with an April 2027 opening date. Insurance coverage within the development will exceed EGP 30 billion.

The numbers behind the announcement

TMG says The Spine is expected to generate EGP 818 billion in tax revenues for the Egyptian state budget over its lifetime, create 55,000 direct jobs and 100,000 indirect ones, and deliver EGP 1.7 trillion in total sales. Hisham Talaat Moustafa described the investment as equivalent to roughly 1% of Egypt's GDP, a figure that, if achieved, would make it one of the most economically significant privately financed real estate developments in the country's history.

The company behind it

Talaat Moustafa Group is the largest listed real estate developer in Egypt. Its origins date to the 1970s when the late Talaat Moustafa began building what would become one of the country's most influential construction and property empires. The holding company was listed on the Egyptian Exchange in 2007. The group's land portfolio spans over 100,000 acres in Greater Cairo, the largest of any developer in the country, and its projects are home to over 1 million residents across developments including El Rehab, Madinaty, Celia and the North Coast's SouthMED. TMG exceeded EGP 500 billion in sales in 2024 and ranked No.8 on Forbes Middle East's Top 50 Listed Companies in Egypt list in 2023.

Its hospitality arm has developed and manages some of Egypt's most prominent hotels, including Four Seasons Nile Plaza, Four Seasons San Stefano in Alexandria, Four Seasons Sharm El Sheikh and the new Four Seasons New Cairo Capital at Madinaty.

Who Hisham Talaat Moustafa is

Hisham Talaat Moustafa, 66, has led TMG since 2017, when he was released from prison on a presidential pardon after serving 9 years of a 15-year sentence. He had been convicted of involvement in ordering the 2008 murder of Lebanese singer Suzanne Tamim, a case that sent shockwaves through Egypt's business and political establishment. His original death sentence was reduced on retrial. He returned to the company he had built and has since steered it through one of the most active periods in its history.

Born in Alexandria in 1959, he graduated from the University of Alexandria's College of Commerce in 1980. He became one of the most prominent real estate developers in the Arab world, overseeing the creation of Madinaty and Al Rehab among other large-scale projects. Forbes Middle East ranked him 33rd among Top CEOs in the Middle East in 2024 and named him No.1 in its Travel and Tourism Leaders list the same year. His net worth is estimated at approximately $1.4 billion.

The Spine is not the first megaproject announced for Egypt in recent years. ADQ's $35 billion Ras El Hekma project, Qatari Diar's $30 billion Mediterranean coast development and TMG's own previously announced Noor City smart city project have all been unveiled in the past 3 years. The Spine puts TMG at the centre of a race to define what urban Egypt looks like in the decades ahead, this time with artificial intelligence built into the architecture from the ground up.