Egypt ranks first in Africa for government AI readiness
Oxford Insights ranks Egypt 51st globally in 2025, ranks 4th in MEA
#Egypt #AIreadiness - Egypt has ranked first in Africa in the Government AI Readiness Index 2025 produced by Oxford Insights. The country advanced 14 positions to rank 51st globally out of 195 countries with a total score of 57.5 points, compared to 65th out of 188 countries with 55.6 points in 2024. The country also ranked fourth in the Middle East and Africa region, up from seventh position last year. Egypt topped the global ranking in the Policy Capacity pillar achieving a perfect score of 100 points alongside the United Kingdom, Serbia and Australia, whilst ranking first in the Arab region in the Resilience pillar with a score of 62.81.
SO WHAT? - The Index’s Policy Capacity pillar measures the government’s ability to design and implement effective AI policies aligned with a clear national policy vision to guide the use of AI in serving the state, as well as assessing the availability of resources required to implement this vision and the level of engagement in relevant international agreements. It is significant that Egypt has topped the ranking and, in particular, outpaced Saudi Arabia and the UAE which have invested heavily in policy development and the mechanisms to implement.
Here are some key points about Egypt’s performance in the 2025 index:
Egypt has ranked first in Africa in the Government AI Readiness Index 2025 issued by Oxford Insights, advancing 14 positions to rank 51st globally out of 195 countries with a total score of 57.5 points, up from 65th globally with 55.6 points in 2024.
Egypt is one of only four countries in the Middle East and Africa top ten grouping that increased its overall score from the 2024 edition of the index, demonstrating sustained progress in AI readiness capabilities.
Egypt topped the global ranking in the Policy Capacity pillar achieving a perfect score of 100 points alongside the United Kingdom, Serbia and Australia, measuring the government’s ability to design and implement effective AI policies aligned with clear national policy vision.
The country ranked first in the Arab region in the Resilience pillar with a score of 62.81 and second in the Middle East and Africa following Kenya (69.68), measuring ability to manage social, economic and environmental challenges from widespread AI adoption.
Minister of Communications and Information Technology Amr Talaat emphasised the progress reflects success of efforts to harness AI technologies in serving society, grounded in an integrated policy framework supporting responsible and effective use including the unveiling of the second edition of the National AI Strategy in early 2025.
Egypt’s National AI Strategy is built on six main pillars: strengthening governance to ensure responsible AI use, developing applications to advance service efficiency, improving data availability and quality, providing advanced infrastructure, creating an innovation-supportive ecosystem, and developing the national pool of AI talent.
Egypt advanced 46 positions in the Government AI Readiness Index between 2019 and 2024, rising from 111th globally in 2019 to 65th globally in 2024, before advancing a further 14 positions to 51st in 2025.
ZOOM OUT - Egypt’s National Artificial Intelligence Strategy 2025-2030 targets the establishment of over 250 AI companies and a workforce of 30,000 AI professionals by 2030 whilst raising the ICT sector's contribution to GDP to 7.7 percent. The strategy focuses on six pillars including governance, infrastructure, technology, data, ecosystem and talent, with core emphasis on driving inclusive AI to foster Digital Egypt. There are also plans to develop a national foundational Arabic language model to perform tasks such as translation, sentiment analysis and content generation, which would then enable domain-specific models. The strategy builds on Egypt's first AI strategy launched in 2021, emphasising ethical AI use with a comprehensive regulatory framework under the Egyptian Charter for Responsible AI.
[Written and edited with the assistance of AI]
Read more about Egypt’s AI journey:
Egypt adds quantum computing to AI council mandate (Middle East AI News)
AI leaders to convene at Ai Everything MEA (Middle East AI News)
Egypt, UNESCO launch 2025 AI readiness report (Middle East AI News)
Egypt proposes Arab AI Council to unify policies (Middle East AI News)
Egypt opens AI university courses to tech school grads (Middle East AI News)