Ethiopia’s artificial intelligence ambitions will matter to its citizens only if they become services people can actually use: advice for farmers, health information on basic phones, and public institutions that work better. That question hangs over the country’s fast-moving AI agenda. And it carries real consequences for daily life across a population of more than 120 million.
The foundations are already in place. Ethiopia established its Artificial Intelligence Institute in 2020. After three years of stakeholder consultations, it adopted its first National AI Policy on June 27, 2024. Then, in March 2026, the Council of Ministers approved the creation of Medemer Artificial Intelligence University in Addis Ababa as an independent public university, placing Ethiopia alongside the UAE in a small group of countries with an institution devoted entirely to AI education and research.
The stakes are considerable. The IMF projects that AI could lift Sub-Saharan Africa’s GDP by roughly 4 percent over the coming decade. Whether Ethiopians share in that growth depends less on policy documents than on execution: building the human talent, expertise and organizational systems needed to put commitments into practice.
Here, Ethiopia’s deepening relationship with the UAE offers a practical reference point. The two countries have built cooperation across investment, infrastructure and public sector modernisation under a bilateral framework launched in 2023, with knowledge-sharing and capacity-building in emerging technologies among the results. Senior Ethiopian officials recently took part in the AI Executive Leadership Programme in the UAE, organised by the Ministry of Cabinet Affairs and Hamdan Bin Mohammed Smart University, where they examined AI applications across 15 Emirati institutions, including the Prime Minister’s Office and the Dubai Centre for Artificial Intelligence. During the exchange, UAE Minister of Cabinet Affairs Mohammad Al Gergawi stressed that investing in human capital and equipping public sector leaders with the right skills and vision is essential to government performance.
The UAE’s own record shows what sustained execution can deliver. After appointing the world’s first Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence in 2017, it launched a national AI strategy targeting 2031, and Dubai and Abu Dhabi required Chief AI Officers across public agencies to embed accountability for technology adoption. By 2025, AI tool adoption across UAE government entities had reached 97 percent. By early 2026, Microsoft’s Global AI Diffusion Report ranked the UAE first worldwide, with 70.1 percent of its working-age population regularly using AI tools.
The lesson for Ethiopia is not to copy these structures but to ensure that responsibility for implementing AI is clearly assigned, backed by expertise and tied to measurable outcomes. The UAE’s investment in people is equally instructive. Beyond the Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence as a graduate research institution, AI education enters public schools from the 2026 academic year, and civil servants are being equipped with practical digital skills. Regulatory sandboxes have also allowed new applications to be tested in controlled settings before broader rules are introduced.
Context, however, matters. Ethiopia faces challenges of a different scale than the UAE’s highly urbanized, well-connected and well-financed environment. Ethio telecom data show roughly 52.5 million internet and data users, 51.53 million on mobile data and around one million on fixed broadband. Only about 44 percent of the population has access to electricity. An AI strategy dependent on high-speed bandwidth, modern hardware and reliable power would risk deepening digital exclusion rather than reducing it.
Even so, Ethiopia holds real assets. The Fayda national digital identity registry has passed 40 million citizens, and Ethio telecom’s Telebirr mobile wallet has more than 60 million users. Built on these public digital platforms, services can be designed for the conditions people actually live in: voice-based tools in local languages could deliver weather and climate-resilient farming advice to farmers, while SMS-based health information could reach people on basic mobile phones without costly devices or fast connectivity.
Cooperation with the UAE could support this work through technical knowledge, institutional partnerships and financing, including the UAE’s announced $1 billion AI for Development initiative for Africa. The opportunity is not simply to imitate a leader, but to adapt what fits Ethiopia’s own priorities: investing in skills, strengthening accountability in government, testing practical applications and keeping new technologies accessible to the people they are meant to serve.
Success, in the end, will not be counted in policies adopted or institutions founded. It will be measured by whether AI makes public services more accessible, supports livelihoods and improves the daily lives of Ethiopians.
Abel Takele is a senior public affairs consultant and Market Lead at Global Advisors Communications, with more than a decade of experience in strategic communications across public affairs and broadcast media.