Mexico industrial leadership and artificial intelligence adoption, Digi Mart USA News (Mexico): Mexico has the most successful industrial and export policy in Latin America, a result of 33 years of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and now the USMCA. However, the relationship between production and local innovation is not equally strong.
Mexico does not adopt technology at the pace of the world, does not train talent to innovate, and does not develop its own technology, particularly in artificial intelligence (AI).
The country has built a success story around generating jobs and attracting companies, but technological and digital adoption is lacking. Over the past 30 years, the author notes, technology conglomerates have emerged from assembly operations to lead global digital development, including in China, Korea, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan.
Mexico is not among them.
The 2026 Latin American Artificial Intelligence Index (ILIA), prepared by Chile’s National Center for Artificial Intelligence (Cenia) and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), provides a blunt assessment of public policy and the actual state of AI in the region. The report describes a heterogeneous region with uneven progress and a significant gap in technology adoption.
Mexico’s performance is both fascinating and troubling. The country earns a perfect score of 100 out of 100 for productive sophistication, driven by its strong manufacturing infrastructure, export dynamism and the weight of high-technology industrial employment.
It also leads the region in advanced talent training, with 63 master’s programs and 21 doctoral programs specialized in AI.
Behind this academic and industrial strength lies a paradox. Mexico ranks eighth in the region with an overall score of 52 out of 100, placing it in the “adopter” category.
It trails not only leaders Chile (71.4), Brazil (68.4) and Uruguay (67.0), but also smaller economies such as Colombia (56.8), Costa Rica (56.0), Argentina (55.6) and Peru (52.7).
The index attributes this to “the fragility of its enabling factors and an unstructured adoption model,” raising the question of why the region’s second-largest economy and largest manufacturing exporter sits in the middle of the table.
The ILIA 2026 identifies several bottlenecks. First is the shortfall in infrastructure and supercomputing.
With only 49.6 points for enabling factors, Mexico faces a critical deficit in ultra-high-speed connectivity, such as high-quality 5G networks, and a lack of public and private supercomputing capacity. Infrastructure falls short, and data centers are lacking.
Second is investment. Over the past decade, Mexico accumulated US$1.223 billion in private investment for AI entrepreneurship and innovation.
That figure appears substantial but pales in comparison with Brazil’s US$7.775 billion and Chile’s US$1.668 billion. Domestic and international private capital continues to view Mexico as an assembly, maquiladora and operations center rather than a hub for digital and AI development.
The ILIA 2026 also reports that 27.6% of large corporations use AI, but that figure drops to 6.8% among small and medium-sized enterprises.
Mexico trains the largest number of AI teachers and doctorate holders in the region, yet these professionals are rarely integrated into research and development. Most talent migrates to developed markets or is recruited for operational maintenance rather than innovation.
The absence of a coordinated national strategy and a serious regulatory framework creates legal uncertainty. While Brazil, Chile and Costa Rica are advancing, Mexico is described as operating reactively and in a fragmented manner.
Is AI the new operating system of global development? Yes, but ignoring deficiencies in infrastructure, financing and coordinated public policy will keep the country a mere spectator.
The article concludes that Mexico must move away from the illusion of industrial leadership, hold a historic 5G spectrum auction and accelerate the mass adoption of AI.
