AI in Mexico

Despite this, the country’s AI readiness ranking has fallen from 22nd in 2018 to 68th in 2023, in part thanks to government changes and a subsequent deprioritisation of the need to create a documented roadmap to accompany the general aims of the 2018 strategy, which was clear in vision but not in action. One positive aspect is that the appetite to introduce AI appears to be present in the Mexican business community. A KPMG study estimates half of the country’s companies feel AI will have the greatest impact on their business in the next three years – but of course, sentiment and subsequent action are two different matters.

The main area to watch in Mexican AI readiness is infrastructure development, particularly on the data centre and fibre side, where heavy investment is underway to meet the upcoming AI-based demand. Recent fibre deployments to data centres (see the Terrestrial and Subsea Fibre section of this report) have specifically been designed to meet AI workload requirements, and private investment outside of this sphere has also been forthcoming, including $1.3bn from Microsoft to develop its cloud and AI infrastructure specifically within Mexico, where the company already serves several of Mexico’s largest private enterprises.