The performance index of Saudi Arabian government entities in “Adoption of Emerging Technologies” improved significantly by 10 percentage points compared to last year, rising from 60.3% in 2023 to 70.7% in 2024.
This improvement is due to an increase in the number of participating government agencies from 13 to 35.
The progress was detailed in an annual report released by the Digital Government Agency (DGA), which highlighted the readiness of government agencies to adopt emerging technologies in 2024.
The rising adoption index reflects wider participation and growing interest, in line with the Kingdom’s goal of fostering innovation and supporting the latest technologies.
It also underscores Saudi Arabia’s commitment to sustainable development and building an advanced digital future under its Vision 2030 initiative, which positions digital transformation as a cornerstone of its vision for the future.
The report also highlights progress in various capabilities to adopt emerging technologies.
The focus on adopting emerging technologies coincides with a period of transformation in the Kingdom’s digital government, which is leveraging cutting-edge technology to provide better services to citizens, residents and visitors, playing a key role in the journey to the future.
Saudi Arabia is integrating a number of emerging technologies into government services to improve efficiency, automate services, save time and effort, and promote transparency.
Globally, key emerging technologies in digital government include artificial intelligence (AI) used to improve government services, the Internet of Things (IoT) for data collection and analysis, virtual reality to provide interactive citizen experiences, and 3D printing for part manufacturing.
Notably, Saudi Arabia ranked first globally in the Government AI Readiness Index, part of Tortoise Intelligence’s Global AI Index, which evaluates more than 60 countries. Germany and China ranked second and third, respectively.
Saudi Arabia received full marks in the index’s criteria, including having a dedicated national AI strategy, a government agency dedicated to AI, funding and budgetary allocations for AI, and defined national AI goals.
