Korea's Digital and AI Competitiveness Rises to 10th in Global Rankings
November 13, 2026 · 2 min read
Also published in Português (Brasil)
Korea's digital and AI competitiveness has been reported to rank at the 10th level globally. This marks an increase of eight positions compared to the previous year. The Ministry of Science and ICT announced on November 11 that Korea achieved this ranking in the '2026 Global Digital and AI Competitiveness' evaluation conducted by the International Institute for Management Development (IMD), which assessed 70 countries.
Notably, in the areas of 'technological infrastructure' and 'efficiency,' which reflect multiple AI-related indicators, Korea ranked 3rd. Among the six newly introduced AI indicators, four ranked within the top twelve, including the 'AI Adoption Index' at 8th place. However, there were lower rankings in areas such as 'Understanding AI Security Risks' at 25th and 'Legislated AI Policies' at 30th, indicating variability among the AI metrics.
In global rankings, the United States improved from 4th to 1st place, while Canada dropped from 1st to 5th place. In the Asia-Pacific region, Singapore ranked highest at 2nd, followed by China at 7th and Japan at 19th.
All five major sectors, including governance, technological infrastructure, efficiency, human resource development, and value behavior, saw improvements in their rankings. In governance, the new 'Core Government Systems Index' secured the 1st position, while public-private cooperation supporting technological development rose from 59th to 35th. The technological infrastructure maintained its 1st place in total R&D expenditure relative to GDP.
In the efficiency category, the 'AI Adoption Index' ranked 8th, and the implementation of the national AI strategy ranked 18th. The human resource development sector recorded the new AI readiness index and AI education index at 8th and 12th respectively. The official from the Ministry of Science and ICT stated that the eight-position rise reflects Korea's resilience and the government's commitment to AI, and emphasized the continuation of key digital and AI policies.