As artificial intelligence reshapes economic competitiveness and state capacity, indexes like the Government AI Readiness Index serve not merely as technical rankings, but as indicators of national strategic priorities. In this sense, Saudi Arabia has moved decisively from regional ambition toward global relevance, even as the global hierarchy of AI power remains largely intact.
Tirana Times, December 24, 2025 – The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has achieved a remarkable milestone in artificial intelligence governance by ranking first in the Middle East and North Africa region. This achievement positions the Kingdom not only as a regional leader but also as an emerging global power in AI governance.
Saudi Arabia’s top regional ranking in the Government AI Readiness Index 2025 marks a significant step in its broader strategy to become a technology enabled state. Compiled by Oxford Insights, the index evaluates the readiness of 195 governments worldwide to adopt, regulate, and deploy artificial intelligence in public administration and policymaking.
Worldwide, Saudi Arabia ranks seventh in AI governance and ninth in public sector AI adoption. These results place it among the world’s strongest performing governments in specific areas, particularly in translating strategy into institutional capacity.
At the global level, the United States remains the highest ranked country overall, supported by a dominant technology sector, advanced research ecosystems, and early integration of artificial intelligence across both public and private institutions. Western European states including the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and the Netherlands follow closely, combining strong digital infrastructure with mature regulatory and ethical frameworks.
Saudi Arabia’s ranking signals that the Kingdom has moved beyond ambition and into implementation. National AI strategies are increasingly reflected in concrete governance mechanisms and administrative capacity. Few non-Western states have achieved comparable progress in such a short period of time.
Within the MENA region, Saudi Arabia stands clearly ahead. The United Arab Emirates follows and Qatar has expanded investment in AI related infrastructure, particularly energy intensive data centers, but still lags behind Saudi Arabia in overall government AI readiness.
The wider regional picture remains uneven. Gulf states dominate AI readiness indicators, while many countries in North Africa and the Levant continue to face limited institutional capacity, fragmented digital strategies, and underdeveloped data infrastructure. Saudi Arabia’s leadership therefore reflects both its own rapid progress and the structural gaps that persist across the region.
Globally, AI readiness continues to mirror existing power structures. North America, led by the United States, ranks first regionally, followed by Western Europe, which combines technological maturity with increasingly robust governance frameworks, including the European Union’s emerging AI regulatory regime. East Asia, particularly Singapore, South Korea, and Japan, maintains strong global positions through state led investment, public private coordination, and long term digital strategies.
The result is an increasingly multipolar AI landscape, where influence is shaped not only by innovation, but by the ability to govern artificial intelligence responsibly and at scale. Saudi Arabia’s rise fits squarely into this emerging order. It does not replace Western or East Asian leaders, but it has joined a relatively small group of states shaping how AI is governed in the public sector.
Compared to Saudi Arabia and leading global powers, the Balkans including Albania remain at an early stage of AI integration. Independent digital and innovation readiness indexes consistently place Balkan countries lower, reflecting infrastructure constraints, limited human capital, and institutional weaknesses. Albania does not feature prominently in the Government AI Readiness Index 2025, pointing less to a lack of ambition than to deeper structural challenges.
Albania briefly attracted global attention by appointing an AI generated virtual minister known as Diella, tasked with overseeing aspects of public procurement. The virtual official even appeared before parliament, in a session boycotted by the opposition, turning the initiative into a worldwide media story.
The symbolism, however, quickly collided with institutional reality. Just three months later, Albania’s Special Anti Corruption and Organized Crime Prosecution arrested the director and deputy director of the National Agency for Information Society, the institution responsible for critical digital infrastructure, on serious corruption and organized crime charges. The case highlighted a fundamental lesson of AI governance: technological innovation cannot substitute for institutional integrity.
Saudi Arabia’s rise in AI readiness matters not because it has overtaken the world’s leading powers, but because it demonstrates how a non Western state can rapidly build governance capacity through strategic vision, centralized coordination, and sustained investment. The Kingdom’s experience raises broader questions relevant far beyond the MENA region. Can emerging economies accelerate AI readiness by linking digital transformation to deep state reform? Will Western dominance persist as AI governance becomes as important as innovation itself? And can regions such as the Balkans leapfrog stages of development by embedding artificial intelligence into genuine public sector modernization rather than symbolic gestures?
As artificial intelligence reshapes economic competitiveness and state capacity, indexes like the Government AI Readiness Index serve not merely as technical rankings, but as indicators of national strategic priorities. In this sense, Saudi Arabia has moved decisively from regional ambition toward global relevance, even as the global hierarchy of AI power remains largely intact.
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