Press and policy teams
Facts, approved wording and contacts for journalists, policy units and event organisers.
About the Lab, in 80 words
The Arab AI Governance Lab studies how the 22 member states of the Arab League govern artificial intelligence. It publishes an open dataset on national strategies, regulators, data protection, readiness, research output, infrastructure, human capital and cybersecurity, and analyses why states with similar resources govern AI so differently. The Lab is led by Dr. Anis Ben Brik with colleagues at Università della Svizzera italiana, the University of California, Berkeley, and Jagiellonian University. Data: doi:10.7910/DVN/MOVIFA.
Five facts from the 2025 release
(i) A standalone AI law was still to come in all 22 states; a 38-article draft in Bahrain was the most advanced initiative.
(ii) Ten states had adopted a national AI strategy and nine had a dedicated governance body.
(iii) Nine states were at the Nascent stage, with no framework coded so far.
(iv) Saudi Arabia rose from rank 52 to rank 6 on the UN e-government index between 2018 and 2024.
(v) Iraq recorded 679 indexed AI publications in 2023 with no enacted data protection law.
Using figures and data
Figures and text are licensed CC BY 4.0. Use the citation button under each figure and keep the dataset DOI in the credit line. Figures download as SVG for print and broadcast. Each country profile has a print layout suited to a two-page brief.
Naming
Full name: Arab AI Governance Lab. Short form after the first mention: the Lab. Please describe the Lab as led by Dr. Anis Ben Brik; the universities listed are the affiliations of its members, not institutional hosts.
Contact
Interviews, briefings and event invitations: anis.ben.brik@usi.ch. English, French and Arabic.