Scope and unit of analysis
The Index covers the 193 United Nations member states, the Holy See and the State of Palestine. The European Union has a complete supranational profile but is not ranked as a sovereign state. The annual evidence cutoff is 31 July 2026.
The knowledge graph can continue to update. Once the annual edition is published, its results and frozen quantitative bounds are immutable.
Scoring anchors
| Score | Documentary evidence anchor |
|---|---|
| 0 | Reviewed documentary evidence of absence. |
| 25 | Announcement, draft, consultation or pilot. |
| 50 | Adopted but partial, not fully applicable or not operational. |
| 75 | In force and operational, with implementation evidence. |
| 100 | Comprehensive, independently supervised and supported by published outcomes or enforcement. |
Quantitative normalization
Quantitative indicators use the median of eligible observations dated from 1 January 2024 through the cutoff. Per-capita or GDP measures are supplied where required by the indicator definition. On the first eligible recalculation, log1p is selected when skewness exceeds two, values are winsorized at the 2.5th and 97.5th percentiles, and the transform plus min-max bounds are persisted and reused.
Missing data
Missing evidence is never scored as zero. Documentary and quantitative indicators are not imputed in the 2026 implementation. Coverage below 90% is labelled provisional; coverage below 70% does not produce a country result.
A zero means reviewed evidence of absence. “Not found” means missing. No documentary or quantitative value is imputed in the 2026 implementation.
Verification and confidence
Every observation is linked to a verified Tier 1–3 source and immutable archive record with URL, publisher, source and access dates, evidence excerpt and SHA-256 hash. Every observation passes human review. Expert-rubric evidence must then be published by a different editor.
- A: at least 90% verified indicator coverage.
- B: 80–89% verified indicator coverage.
- C: 70–79% verified indicator coverage.
- Below 70%: no country result is generated.
Ranking and ties
Scores are calculated at full precision and displayed to one decimal. Equal displayed scores receive the same competition rank—1, 2, 2, 4—with alphabetical ordering used only for display. There is no hidden tie-break.
Limitations
Globally comparable AI investment data is incomplete and often commercially restricted. Announced budgets are not treated as executed spending, general R&D is not silently relabelled as AI R&D, and unlicensed private-capital datasets are excluded. This lowers coverage instead of creating a fabricated proxy.