Uzbekistan Among Global AI Laggers — Microsoft Ranking Places Country 141st

Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) — Uzbekistan ranked 141st out of 147 economies in terms of artificial intelligence adoption in the second half of 2025, according to the latest report from the Microsoft Institute for AI Economics.

Despite a modest increase in the “AI diffusion” indicator from 5.7% to 6.3% over the past six months, the country remains in the lower tier of the global ranking, ahead only of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Cambodia.

By comparison, the leaders were the UAE with 64% and Singapore with 60.9%, where more than half of the working-age population actively use generative AI tools in their daily work.

Experts noted the DeepSeek platform, an open-source solution, as a key factor in democratizing technology in regions where Western solutions are limited or unavailable.

The DeepSeek ecosystem has shown strong results in Africa and several CIS markets, reaching a 43% share in Russia. In Uzbekistan, however, the platform’s penetration does not exceed 5%, highlighting the very low engagement of the population even with free and accessible AI tools.

Analysts emphasize that the gap between the “Global North” and “Global South” continues to widen, with AI adoption in developed countries occurring almost twice as fast.

South Korea’s experience, which moved up seven positions thanks to government support and localization of language models, demonstrates that success in this field depends not only on infrastructure but also on targeted policies for population training and skill development.