From Riyadh, Saudi Arabia has secured top-tier positions across multiple artificial intelligence benchmarks in the 2026 World Digital and AI Ranking, released by the International Institute for Management Development (IMD). Evaluating 70 economies across 88 statistical and executive survey criteria, spanning governance, infrastructure, efficiency, workforce and values, the report emphasizes how aggressive state policy and private capital, are reshaping the Saudi’s economy.
The ranking serves as a critical validation of its Saudi Vision 2030 economic diversification agenda, which prioritizes technology and data infrastructure to reduce long-term reliance on hydrocarbon revenues. Government concern over sovereign data security, ethical guardrails, and institutional readiness appears directly reflected in the scorecard. Saudi Arabia ranked second globally for corporate awareness of AI-related cybersecurity risks and the protection of sensitive enterprise data. It also placed fourth worldwide in executing its national AI strategy, alongside corporate AI adoption and public access to AI tools.
Economic momentum is equally visible in capital and talent metrics. The Kingdom ranked fifth globally in overall AI adoption, public trust, regulatory frameworks, and corporate AI investment. Further down the index, it secured seventh place for AI workforce skills, smart-city service delivery, and algorithmic bias mitigation, while placing eighth in overall AI readiness, ninth in private-sector AI investment, and 11th in total capital investment.
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