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Sovereign AI: National Strategies and State-Backed Compute

How governments outside the US and China are funding their own AI: EU gigafactories, the IndiaAI Mission, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the Gulf states' data center bets.

Latest in Sovereign AI

What we cover in Sovereign AI

Sovereign AI is the effort by governments to own or control the computing power, data, models and talent that artificial intelligence depends on. The alternative is to rent all of it from a handful of foreign companies. This section follows that effort outside the United States and China. It covers the European Union, India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the Gulf states.

The programs look very different. The EU pools money through its supercomputing body, EuroHPC. That body is setting up 19 AI Factories. On July 30, 2026 it opened a call for up to seven far larger AI gigafactories. India's IndiaAI Mission was approved in March 2024 with ₹10,371.92 crore over five years, according to the Press Information Bureau. It offers startups and researchers subsidized access to chips, the bureau says. In the Gulf, Stargate UAE was announced in May 2025 as a 1-gigawatt computing cluster in Abu Dhabi. The partners behind it include OpenAI, Oracle and Nvidia alongside the Emirati firm G42.

Whether any of this adds up to independence is disputed. A Brookings Institution report published in February 2026 concluded that almost no country can realistically control every layer of AI. It recommended managing dependence on foreign suppliers instead of trying to end it. Coverage here treats announced totals as pledges, not money spent. Each figure is reported with who announced it, the period it covers and its original currency. Where the split is known, coverage also says how much is public funding and how much is private investment that governments hope will follow. The US-China rivalry itself and AI safety law are covered in separate sections.

Sovereign AI reference

Sovereign AI: common questions

What is sovereign AI?
Sovereign AI is a country's effort to control the parts of artificial intelligence it considers critical. Those include computing power, data, models and skilled workers. The alternative is relying entirely on foreign suppliers. A February 2026 Brookings Institution report treats it as a matter of degree. It describes sovereign AI as a range of strategies that widen a country's room to make its own decisions about AI infrastructure. It says total self-sufficiency is out of reach for almost every country.
Why do countries want sovereign AI?
Governments cite national security and resilience as well as economic competitiveness, according to a February 2026 Brookings Institution report. They also cite the inclusion of local languages and culture in AI systems and a stronger voice in global AI governance, the report says. Investment is also highly concentrated. Stanford's 2026 AI Index put private AI investment in the United States at $285.88 billion in 2025. It put the figure at $20.92 billion in Europe and $12.41 billion in China.
What is Stargate UAE?
Stargate UAE is a planned 1-gigawatt AI computing cluster in Abu Dhabi, announced on May 22, 2025. According to the partners, the Emirati company G42 will build it and OpenAI and Oracle will operate it. They say Nvidia, Cisco and SoftBank Group are also involved. It was announced as part of a 5-gigawatt UAE-US AI campus, with the first 200 megawatts expected in 2026. Reuters reported in September 2026 that the UAE was revising the wider campus plan after Iranian attacks in the Gulf.
What is the IndiaAI Mission?
The IndiaAI Mission is the Indian government's national AI program. The Union Cabinet approved it in March 2024 with a budget outlay of 10,371.92 crore rupees over five years. A crore is 10 million. The mission is implemented by IndiaAI, a division under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. The mission has seven pillars including subsidized computing, datasets, Indian foundation models, skills and startup financing. The government said more than 38,000 GPUs had been onboarded by December 2025.

Sources

  1. Is AI sovereignty possible? Balancing autonomy and interdependence, Brookings Institution
  2. The EuroHPC Joint Undertaking launches the AI Gigafactories Call, EuroHPC Joint Undertaking
  3. AI Factories | Shaping Europe's digital future, European Commission
  4. Transforming India with AI, Press Information Bureau, Government of India
  5. Global Tech Alliance Launches Stargate UAE, SoftBank Group
  6. UAE revises AI data center plan after Iranian attacks, consider underground construction, Reuters (via The Jerusalem Post)
  7. Economy | The 2026 AI Index Report | Stanford HAI, Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI