Machinepower Index / Dossiers / Ukraine
Rank 34–49 across the scoring rules tested. How this is tested
Ukraine
Specialist Power — For nations among the world's best at something the frontier needs but could find elsewhere: keep earning the lead before others catch up, and trade expertise for access.
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 | 7.0 |
| Firm Power Capacity | Dataset | 2.8 | |
| Sovereign Compute | Assessed | 2.0 | |
| Hardware & Silicon Access | Assessed | 2.5 | |
| Weights | Frontier Model Output | Assessed | 3.0 |
| Alignment Capability | Assessed | 4.0 | |
| Regulatory Standing | Dataset | 8.3 | |
| Talent Density | Dataset | 6.8 | |
| Will | Policy Capacity | Dataset | 7.4 |
| Public Sector Adoption | Dataset | 8.0 | |
| Workforce Transition | Dataset | 7.0 | |
| Public Trust | Assessed | 8.4 |
Assessed marks a measurement we judged rather than took from a dataset: 6 of the 12 here.
Sources
The state AI Factory starts with four GPU nodes, due by June 2026, and the national LLM is trained on a planned cluster of about 64 Nvidia GPUs bought by Kyivstar. A sovereign AI data centre exists only as a June 2026 memorandum.
View source →Ukraine has no domestic chip fabrication or lithography; its accelerators arrive through allied supply, as the AI Factory's Nvidia hardware shows.
View source →Available dispatchable capacity fell to roughly 11.5 GW by February 2026, against installed capacity of about 55 GW before the invasion. This is the lowest firm-power position in the Index, and it is the result of sustained strikes on generation rather than of any policy choice.
View source →Ukraine rose from 54th to 41st in a single year. Its own Ministry of Digital Transformation reported the rank as 40th; the figure used here follows Oxford Insights' published account rather than the government's.
View source →The Diia ecosystem passed 24 million users, with 77 services in the app and more than 150 on the portal. Diia.AI, added in September 2025, delivers government services inside a chat interface rather than only answering questions about them.
View source →More than 300 AI-based innovations are registered with the Brave1 defence-tech cluster and over 70 AI and computer-vision systems are in use by units at the front. Certification runs in months rather than the multi-year cycles typical of allied defence procurement.
View source →3,800 IT companies joined the Diia.City tax regime after 2022, including roughly 200 civilian AI firms — among them Grammarly and Respeecher — and about 200 more building defence AI. Drone manufacturers went from 7 before the war to more than 500.
View source →Avengers Labs holds roughly 5 million annotated battlefield frames, largely drawn from the DELTA combat system. Models trained on it process more than 100,000 drone video streams a month and identify about 70% of targets in real time. Access is licensed by the Ministry under Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 310.
View source →Used for the workforce measurement. The IMF combines schooling, pay, labour mobility and active labour-market policies; the Index rescales it so the weakest of 173 economies scores 0 and the strongest 10.
View source →On the register — an exclusive asset
Ukraine holds something others pay to reach but could live without: an exclusive asset, the rung below a chokepoint. See the whole chain.
Ukraine's Ministry of Defence runs Avengers Labs, a platform built around an annotated dataset of 5 million battlefield frames, most of it drawn from the DELTA combat system. The sensors capture what Ukrainian forces face: tanks, artillery, air defence systems, infantry, and aerial targets including Russian-operated Shahed drones and reconnaissance UAVs. The Ministry states that a dataset of comparable scale and quality is virtually impossible for private companies to build. Models trained on it already run inside DELTA, processing more than 100,000 drone video streams a month and detecting 70% of enemy targets in real time. Access is licensed by the Ministry under Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 310 of March 2026, which screens applicants and excludes anyone with ownership, business or sanctions ties to Russia. On 24 August 2026 Kyiv gave Britain first access as a partner country and left everyone else waiting. Weaker on dominance than the hardware entries — Russia holds the mirror image of the same war and other militaries hold their own combat data — but stronger on the lever, which is a working licensing regime rather than a power merely available.
Ministry of Defence of Ukraine →Bottlenecks
These hold Ukraine below its Potential. Its two lowest scores cost it the most: sovereign compute at 2.0 (part of Watts) and hardware & silicon access at 2.5 (part of Watts).
Assessment
Ukraine has the widest spread in the Index: a Will score level with the United States and China, on the lowest firm power of any nation. Diia reaches 24 million people; Brave1 certifies battlefield AI in months. But generating capacity has fallen to roughly 11.5 GW from about 55 GW before the invasion. What Ukraine holds is a different kind of power from the kind the Index measures.
The art of the possible
Ukraine already owns what others cannot manufacture: five million annotated frames of real combat, licensed by its own Ministry of Defence. The gain is not in chasing compute it cannot power, but in turning that licence into a durable export while allied capital rebuilds firm generation.
Strategic play — Specialist Power
Turn battlefield AI into a durable export: license the combat data and Brave1-certified systems to allies on terms that outlast the war, and leave compute it cannot yet power to partners while allied capital rebuilds firm generation.
Leverage — the nearest position. On the register as an exclusive asset rather than a chokepoint: five million annotated frames of real combat, licensed by its Ministry of Defence and opened to Britain first. Others pay to reach it but could live without it, and Russia holds its own record of the same war. Still the proof that a position can be built, under bombardment, by the lowest-scored nation in the table.
Open Ukraine in the live Index → — every source behind every number, and the comparison tool.