Cambodia Advances in Government AI Readiness, Climbing the Oxford Index

PHNOM PENH – Cambodia reached a higher ranking in a government artificial intelligence (AI) readiness index, the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications said in a statement on Jan. 16, adding that this was due to the government’s efforts to embrace AI in order to strengthen skills, implement policies as well as encourage innovation in the country.

As the ministry explained in the statement, the country ranked 118th on the list of 195 countries in the Government AI Readiness Index report of the Oxford Insights in 2025, climbing 27 places compared to 2024 when it had stood in 145th place. 

According to the index, Cambodia scored 33.5. China ranked first in the East Asia group, scoring 75.4. 

In its statement, the ministry said this remarkable progress shows that Cambodia is moving in the right direction in embracing artificial intelligence as a strategic tool.

This also reflects the strong commitment of the government “to developing digital infrastructure, strengthening skilled capital, developing enabling policies and legal frameworks, encouraging innovation and new businesses, and promoting the responsible and adaptive use of artificial intelligence,” the ministry added in its statement.

On AI progress, the ministry said that, over the past two years, Cambodia has achieved significant results such as the launch of the National Research Center for Artificial Intelligence in Education, the launch of the report on the assessment of the ethical readiness of artificial intelligence in Cambodia, and the roadmap for the development of digital skills in Cambodia 2024-2035.

In addition, Cambodia is working on the draft of the National Strategy on Artificial Intelligence document, the personal data protection and the draft law on cybersecurity.

As technology advances, several AI-based applications have been launched such as the verification platform “verify.gov.kh,” the translation application TranslateKH, the Sarika application, the Khmer Braille machine translation application, the Khmer ASR application, the Khmer Fastype, and the Cambodian Artificial Intelligence Platform (https://ai.gov.kh).

“The ministry hopes that Cambodia will be able to achieve even better rankings when the National Data Center and the Khmer LLM are launched in the future,” the statement said,  adding that the ministry is calling on all actors in the AI ​​ecosystem to join in with the government to continue on a positive trajectory and contribute to accelerating the digital transformation.