Machinepower Index / Dossiers / Mexico
Rank 37–46 across the scoring rules tested. How this is tested
Mexico
Diffusion Advantage — For nations that cannot build the frontier but can use it faster than anyone: import the models and win on deployment, across the state and the economy, with public consent.
How the Score, Potential and bottleneck cost are worked out: methodology.
The three layers
Energy, grids, data centres and silicon — the physical capacity to run models at scale.
Epoch AI records no large AI clusters or data centres here yet.
Models, alignment capability, standards influence and the talent that produces them.
The capacity to wire AI into the state and the economy while holding public consent.
Where the score comes from
| Layer | Sub-dimension | Basis | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| Watts | Planning & Permitting | Assessed | 4.8 |
| Firm Power Capacity | Dataset | 6.0 | |
| Sovereign Compute | Assessed | 2.0 | |
| Hardware & Silicon Access | Dataset | 4.0 | |
| Weights | Frontier Model Output | Dataset | 3.0 |
| Alignment Capability | Assessed | 3.8 | |
| Regulatory Standing | Dataset | 6.8 | |
| Talent Density | Assessed | 4.9 | |
| Will | Policy Capacity | Dataset | 3.5 |
| Public Sector Adoption | Dataset | 6.6 | |
| Workforce Transition | Dataset | 6.4 | |
| Public Trust | Dataset Sources differ | 6.4 |
Assessed marks a measurement we judged rather than took from a dataset: 4 of the 12 here.
Sources differ marks a cell where two sources disagree by more than a point. Public Trust: Ipsos and Melbourne/KPMG differ by more than a point (7.6 against 6.5); the cell is their average. Trust in AI (7.1) and support for building data centres (5.6) differ by more than a point; the cell is their average.
Sources
Querétaro's data centres draw about 750 MW, but the state utility's transmission sets the pace and 2025 reforms narrow private supply.
View source →Signed the OECD principles, GPAI and the Seoul statement; no AI law or safety body.
View source →A cross-check for planning and permitting, which stays assessed: it scores permits and electricity connections for ordinary firms, not grid-scale connections for data centres.
View source →No system on the June 2026 TOP500 and no compute controlled by the state, universities or firms in Epoch AI; set at the floor.
View source →Stanford does not count Mexico. Estimated from 2.9 million GitHub developers and Oxford Insights' diffusion pillar, averaged with an estimate from LinkedIn's AI talent share (0.31% of members), calibrated on the nations Stanford counts.
View source →Feeds governance and public-sector adoption; policy capacity is listed separately.
View source →The Index scores public trust as 1 + share ÷ 10. Survey of 23,532 adults across 32 countries, March to April 2026.
View source →Feeds workforce, rescaled across 173 economies.
View source →Fossil, nuclear, hydro and other dispatchable plant; averaged with generation for firm power.
View source →Second source for public trust, averaged with Ipsos.
View source →Half of public trust: support for building more data centres, scored as 1 + share ÷ 10 and averaged with trust in AI.
View source →Bottlenecks
These hold Mexico below its Potential. Its two lowest scores cost it the most: sovereign compute at 2.0 (part of Watts) and frontier model output at 3.0 (part of Weights).
Assessment
Mexico has a growing data-centre cluster in Querétaro and assembles AI servers for the US market, but the state utility controls the grid and how fast anything connects. Research and models are thin.
The art of the possible
Foxconn's plant in Guadalajara builds Nvidia's GB200 servers, tying Mexico into the American stack. Opening transmission to private investment would let the data centres follow the factories.
Strategic play — Diffusion Advantage
Use the factories to bargain: trade server assembly for access to chips and cloud, and open the grid so compute can be built beside them.
Leverage — the nearest position. No chokepoint. The nearest key is assembly: a share of America's AI servers is built in Mexico, under trade rules Washington can rewrite.
Open Mexico in the live Index → — every source behind every number, and the comparison tool.