An Accenture report finds the Middle East leads globally on AI sovereignty frameworks but suffers critical deficits in local compute capacity and engineering talent.
The Middle East has established an early lead in AI sovereignty, particularly in data governance and sovereign cloud adoption, but gaps in compute, AI models, applications, and talent could limit the region’s ability to translate that foundation into long-term advantage, according to a new report by Accenture. Drawing on responses from nearly 2,000 business and government leaders across 28 countries—including 185 from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar—the report examines the region’s progress toward AI sovereignty.
Data remains the primary focus of sovereignty efforts, with 54 per cent of Middle Eastern organisations prioritising sovereignty or residency requirements at the data layer, followed by 31 per cent at the infrastructure layer. Accenture noted that while many organisations have established the regulatory foundations of AI sovereignty, they must now strengthen operational control across the wider AI stack. “According to our research, adoption of generative AI alone could unlock more than $10.3 trillion in additional economic value by 2038 for organizations if generative AI is adopted responsibly and at scale, industry by industry, value chain by value chain,” said Abir Habbal, Middle East data and AI lead at Accenture and co-author of the report.
Around 60 per cent of business executives in the Middle East described their country’s approach to AI sovereignty as “highly sovereign,” compared with 32 per cent globally. The region has also accelerated sovereign cloud adoption, with 57 per cent of data and workloads shifted to sovereign cloud environments versus 49 per cent worldwide. Geopolitical considerations further drive investment decisions, as 65 per cent of regional organisations say they are more likely to pursue sovereign solutions amid rising tensions. However, the report highlights a disconnect between perceived sovereignty and local capabilities. Nearly two-thirds of respondents noted that local sovereign AI solutions still lag behind global hyperscalers, and only 35 per cent reported that sovereignty initiatives have meaningfully reduced reliance on global providers. “77% in the Middle East say governments, states or institutions have a key role to play in increasing digital and AI sovereignty – through regulation, subsidies or investments,” said Carla Maria Issa, Middle East research lead at Accenture and co-author of the report.
Accenture evaluates AI sovereignty across five layers: infrastructure, compute, models, applications, and data. The region has advanced significantly in infrastructure, highlighted by Saudi Arabia’s HUMAIN initiative and its partnerships with Nvidia and AMD, alongside cloud providers such as the UAE’s G42 Cloud and Saudi Arabia’s SCCC Alibaba Cloud. Compute and inference, however, remain critical bottlenecks. Saudi Arabia has secured orders for over 18,000 advanced Nvidia AI chips, while the UAE has obtained licensed access to more than 20,000 Nvidia A100 and H-series chips. Yet, advanced chip design and manufacturing remain concentrated among a handful of global firms. On the model front, the region is developing indigenous systems including Saudi Arabia’s ALLAM, the UAE’s Falcon and Jais, and Qatar’s Fanar. While these projects prioritise Arabic-language capabilities, the report cautions that large-scale commercialisation remains in early stages compared with global peers.
Beyond infrastructure and technology, Accenture identifies leadership and talent as major obstacles to the region’s AI sovereignty ambitions. Only 10 per cent of Middle Eastern organisations have elevated AI sovereignty to a CEO- or board-level priority, despite 77 per cent of respondents acknowledging a critical governmental role in advancing digital and AI sovereignty. Limited access to sovereign AI talent ranks among the top challenges facing enterprises. “With architecture and infrastructure foundations in place, organizations must turn to the human layer of the AI stack. Achieving Sovereign AI is not only a technical challenge – it is a talent imperative,” Habbal said. She urged organisations to transition from traditional workforce planning to an integrated, skills-based human-plus-AI talent strategy that aligns people, technology, and business objectives.
The report outlines five priorities for the next phase: placing AI sovereignty on executive and board agendas; framing sovereignty as a value-creation opportunity rather than purely a risk-management exercise; building hybrid ecosystems that blend local trust with global scale; designing flexible architectures spanning infrastructure and AI models; and developing integrated human-plus-AI talent strategies. Accenture pointed to initiatives like the UAE’s GovGPT platform as proof that sovereign AI can deliver tangible value beyond compliance.
The report concludes that while the Middle East has laid crucial groundwork for sovereign AI, it must close capability gaps in compute, platforms, talent, and commercialisation to secure a stronger position in the global AI economy. “The next phase will depend on closing capability gaps by improving the competitiveness of national AI platforms, reducing infrastructure costs and demonstrating measurable business and national value to power a sovereign AI economy,” Habbal said. She added that the region’s abundant energy resources could further reduce the cost of scaling sovereign compute and accelerate the development of AI training and deployment infrastructure.