Scotland's Artificial Intelligence strategy 2026-2031

Seen against the 2021 strategy, which was built around the Scottish AI Alliance, the Scottish AI Playbook, and phased trust-led delivery, the 2026 to 2031 strategy keeps the same values-based core of responsible, ethical, inclusive, and OECD-aligned AI, but shifts to a broader and more operational model centred on the AI Stack and AI Scotland. The AI Stack is briefly explained by the strategy as a systems framework of interconnected layers, from users, skills, companies, innovation, infrastructure, semiconductors, data, and regulation, with “non-hierarchical relationships” between them, meaning no layer is ranked above another and all depend on each other. This marks a clear move from the 2021 focus on governance, adoption, and collective leadership towards a more granular national capability agenda that expressly includes public-service use, regulatory architecture, data stewardship, compute infrastructure, data centres, semiconductors, competitiveness, and ten concrete actions due by March 2027, while still preserving the earlier strategy’s collaborative and trust-based foundations.