Turkey’s tablet loving Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has been going on a tour of the U.S. in pursuit of the greatest tablet marker in the world to arm his students with. The prime minister visited Silicon Valley on May 18th to be briefed by the world’s best technology companies on their latest endeavors.

Erdoğan is looking to buy 10.6 million iPads for his country’s education new education project Faith. So far, Erdoğan was first greeted by Microsoft CEO, Steve Balmer, and then he paid visits to both Apple, Google.

Regarding his visit to the U.S., Erdoğan said:

“We wanted to see the latest developments in the information technology sector before we launched the Fatih bid by visiting the Silicon Valley because we plan to realize a similar project in Istanbul. Our first aim is to produce 10,600,000 tablets as part of the Fatih project, which will be followed by the production of 2 million to 2.5 million tablets.”

For the initial launch of Turkey’s FAITH program – an acronym for Movement of Enhancing Opportunities and Improving Technology – the Turkish Education Ministry wants to purchase about 10.6 million tablet PCs to distribute to schools. The Turkish government plans replace textbooks and blackboards with tablets and electronic display boards to boost Turkey’s education system.

Turkey says they won’t accept bids until May 27th. The prime minister has also received offers from GM, Samsung, and two Turkish companies, Arçelik and Vestel.

• SourceHurriyet Daily News