The importance of building sovereign AI for Mexico’s national development

For centuries, nations have sought sovereignty through natural resources, energy or defense. Today, the new frontier of independence lies in a domain that is invisible, yet increasingly decisive: artificial intelligence. Selene Diez Reyes, CEO of Forte Innovation Consulting, outlines why sovereign AI is essential and what needs to be done.

Discussing sovereign AI is not merely a technical matter, it is a conversation about Mexico’s future. It’s about ensuring that the knowledge, data, and decisions shaping our society remain under national control, guided by ethical principles and aimed at driving development, education, and well-being for all.

What does sovereign AI mean? 

It means that the systems, data, and technological infrastructures supporting artificial intelligence remain under a nation’s own jurisdiction and control. Sovereign AI also means that Mexico can develop, train, and operate AI models autonomously without relying on foreign platforms or providers for critical processes.

But sovereignty goes beyond infrastructure. It’s about designing models with a Mexican identity using data that reflects our linguistic, social, and cultural diversity, and building regulatory frameworks that protect citizens’ digital rights.

Mexico: Progress and Signs of Change

Mexico is moving toward sovereign AI through an agenda that blends cutting-edge computing infrastructure (new cloud regions and “AI-ready” mega-campuses in Queretaro), responsible governance (legislative frameworks and multistakeholder roadmaps), and investment and talent development (global delivery centers, academic supercomputing and upskilling programs).

These efforts enable local processing of sensitive data, lower latency, and greater technological control for both industry and government.

Infrastructure: High-density data centers and local cloud regions allowing data residency and Gen-AI workloads in production.

Governance: Legislative proposals and ethical standards balancing innovation, security and rights.

Talent: University hubs and corporate upskilling to close gaps in MLOps, HPC, and cybersecurity.

Energy/Efficiency: Advanced cooling systems and energy contracts for >30–60 kW/rack densities.

Economy/Competitiveness: Digital nearshoring, traceable supply chains and new data-driven services.

Immediate Opportunity: Designing use cases with data residency in Mexico, open interoperability and TCO/ESG metrics from day one.

These are not isolated initiatives, we’re seeing them gain traction across regions, signaling that Mexico recognizes the strategic value of developing AI with its own identity.

Our country has the talent, yet faces structural challenges that must be addressed to reach a transformative level of AI adoption, one that enables advanced applications for the more than 2 million Mexican companies already using AI at a basic level. It’s crucial to highlight a deeper issue: the gap in technical and infrastructure capabilities across the nation.

For Mexico to truly achieve AI sovereignty, it must build not only algorithms, but also sustainable ecosystems of innovation:

• Distributed, energy-efficient data centers.
• Public policies that promote investment and applied research.
• Talent development from basic to specialized levels.
• Clear regulatory frameworks ensuring transparency, fairness, and accountability.

Technological sovereignty cannot be declared. It must be built, step by step, with vision, collaboration, and political will.

The Ethical Dilemma and Public Trust

No technology has meaning unless it generates trust. Today, one of the main concerns surrounding AI is its opacity: we often don’t know which data it’s trained on, who controls it, or how decisions are made.

A Mexican sovereign AI must be born with ethical principles integrated into its design. It must be transparent, auditable, and fair. It must respect privacy and foster inclusion. Above all, it must align with a collective vision: putting technology at the service of human development.

As a society, we must understand that the challenge isn’t simply to “have AI,” but to have the kind of AI we want to use. One that reflects our values, languages, realities, and aspirations.

Opportunities Defining the Future

Despite the challenges, Mexico holds a unique advantage: its cultural diversity, youthful population and adaptive capacity. We have universities, innovation centers, and companies ready to collaborate in building AI that is more human, local and just. Some key actions to move forward include:

• Promoting public policies specific to sovereign AI, with incentives for national projects and ethical technology frameworks.
• Encouraging collaboration between government, academia and industry, sharing data, knowledge and resources.
• Decentralizing technological infrastructure so innovation reaches rural regions as well.
• Developing purpose-driven talent, integrating ethics, sustainability and data science into secondary and higher education.
• Promoting transparency and citizen participation in the use and oversight of governmental AI.

The goal is not to compete with global tech powers, but to define our own way of using AI to transform the country.

Building Sovereignty is Building the Future

Sovereign AI is not a luxury or a passing trend, it is a strategic decision for national development. If we want Mexico to have its own voice in the digital era, we must invest in technology, education, and ethical governance. Because, in the end, technological sovereignty is not measured by how many algorithms we create, but by how we use them to generate well-being and opportunity for all.