Egypt has emerged as Africa’s leading country in artificial intelligence readiness, ranking first on the continent and 51st globally in the 2025 Government AI Readiness Index published by Oxford Insights.
The impressive ranking has been lauded as underscoring North Africa’s growing influence in the global AI race.
According to Egypt’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT), the country scored 57.5 points out of 100, climbing 14 places from 65th in 2024.
The Nile nation also ranked fourth in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, behind Saudi Arabia, Israel and the United Arab Emirates.
The Oxford Insights index assesses 195 governments using 69 indicators across six pillars, including policy capacity, governance, AI infrastructure, public sector adoption, development and diffusion, and resilience.
Egypt topped the Policy Capacity pillar globally with a perfect score of 100, tying with the UK, Serbia and Australia, an indicator of strong national AI policymaking and institutional readiness.
Oxford Insights noted that countries such as Egypt are “expanding the use of AI across national priorities while shaping policies to strengthen domestic AI ecosystems,” although gaps in infrastructure and talent development remain in some contexts.
MCIT minister Amr Talaat attributed Egypt’s strong performance to deliberate government action.
“This achievement reflects our efforts to integrate artificial intelligence into public services and accelerate digital transformation through Egypt’s second National AI Strategy. We are positioning Egypt as a regional AI hub while ensuring AI delivers real economic and social value,” he said.
Launched for 2025–2030, Egypt’s National AI Strategy targets sectors such as healthcare, justice and public administration, while aiming to train 30 000 AI specialists by 2030 and raise AI’s contribution to GDP to 7.7%.
Talaat also highlighted Egypt’s cybersecurity credentials when he highlighted that the country ranked among the top 12 globally in the ITU’s Global Cyber security Index.
Regionally, the results expose sharp contrasts across Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa ranks ninth out of nine global regions, with an average score of 28.04, reflecting persistent gaps in AI infrastructure and public sector adoption.
However, countries such as Kenya, South Africa, Mauritius and Nigeria lead the sub-region, while Rwanda and Ethiopia are gaining momentum through innovation hubs and policy reforms.
In contrast, the MENA region ranks fifth globally, buoyed by significant investment in AI infrastructure and policy capacity, particularly in Gulf states.
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