How Nations Are Deploying AI for Strategic Priorities

Countries are building and running artificial intelligence using national infrastructure, data, talent and business networks, in ways that fit their language, culture and regulations. Nations have long invested in domestic infrastructure to advance their economies, protect and use their data, and take advantage of technology opportunities in areas such as transportation, communications, commerce, entertainment and healthcare. AI, the most important technology of our time, is turbocharging innovation across every facet of society.

Countries are investing in AI capabilities so they can design, train and deploy models and applications, using domestic infrastructure, local datasets and homegrown expertise. This approach ensures AI solutions are tailored to local citizens, services and regulations. Why AI Capabilities Matter The urgency for countries to build and deploy AI capabilities has grown with the rise of generative and agentic AI , which is reshaping markets, inspiring new industries and transforming existing ones - from gaming to healthcare.

It's changing how people work, as many professions now use AI-powered copilots. These efforts span physical infrastructure and data infrastructure. On the data side, countries are developing foundation models, such as large language models , built by local teams and trained on local datasets.

This helps reflect regional dialects, cultural context and specific domains in the models' outputs. For example, speech AI models can help preserve, promote and revitalize indigenous languages. Large language models are not only used to understand and generate human language; they can also write software code, aid in drug discovery, help protect consumers from financial fraud, teach robots physical skills and much more.

As AI and accelerated computing become increasingly important for tackling climate change, boosting energy efficiency and defending against cybersecurity threats, national AI capabilities play a critical role in enabling every country to strengthen its resilience and sustainability. Factoring In AI Factories A new class of essential infrastructure for AI production has emerged: AI factories, where data comes in and intelligence comes out. These are next-generation data centers that host advanced, full-stack accelerated computing platforms for the most computationally intensive tasks.

Countries are building domestic computing capacity through various models. Some are procuring and operating AI clouds in collaboration with state-owned telecommunications providers or utilities. Others are sponsoring local cloud partners to provide shared AI computing platforms for public-private use.

"The AI factory will become the bedrock of modern economies across the world," NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang said in a media Q&A . Ingredients of a National AI Strategy There are five ingredients of a national AI strategy: AI Imperative: Domestic AI capabilities are critical to economic growth, national security, cultural preservation and innovation - with responsible, trustworthy AI aligned to local policies as well as national goals. AI-Ready Workforce: A wide spectrum of local AI skills and talent, plus basic AI literacy across the population.

Education is important at all levels, from early STEM programs through applied AI across industries. AI Models and Data: Foundation models and large language models trained and fine-tuned with local data, hosted and run on local infrastructure, subject only to local laws. The localization of models will ensure that AI factory outputs are fine-tuned to the language, culture and context for the intended workloads.

AI Ecosystem: A local ecosystem of AI investors, developers, scientists, entrepreneurs, enterprise customers and government organizations. AI Factories: Highlighted above, AI factories are locally owned, operated and governed AI clouds for training and inference.