Machinepower
Index
The GDP of AI sovereignty. A live index scoring 25 nations today — on the three things AI power actually requires, built on 12 primary datasets from the TOP500 to the Stanford AI Index.
Everyone measures AI power the wrong way
Existing indices average a country’s strengths — so a nation with brilliant models and no electricity still looks strong. But AI capability doesn’t average: sovereignty is only as strong as its weakest layer.
Our Score treats the three layers as things a nation needs all of at once, so one weak part pulls the whole number down instead of being averaged away; the Potential shows what fixing it is worth. That single design choice moves 18 of 25 nations — scroll the cards to see it bite.
Three layers. One honest number.
Watts — material power
Energy, grids, data centres, chips. Calibrated against TOP500, JLL, and Energy Institute data.
Weights — intelligence power
Models, talent, research output. Calibrated against Epoch AI, the Stanford AI Index, and WIPO.
Will — political power
Policy speed, procurement, public trust. Calibrated against Oxford Insights and OECD.AI.
Score comes from the twelve measurements beneath the three layers, so one weak number pulls it down instead of being averaged away. Potential = the plain average of the three layers. Every country page carries the strategic play to close the gap — and sponsors touch none of it: scores and methodology are editorially independent, in writing.
Findings that start arguments
Britain’s Score against its Potential — a thin frontier and a queued grid, not talent, are the gap. Its path back runs through Arm, SMRs, and a 420-exaflop compute roadmap.
The layer that most often holds nations back. Electricity — not models — is the modern arms race.
From Total Sovereignty to Siege Autarky — every nation is playing one. The index names which, and whether it’s working.
Scored quarterly and expanding every refresh — with Taiwan and the Netherlands treated as what they are: the chokepoints of the entire supply chain, not footnotes.
Every number is computed live from the index or cited to a source under 12 months old — the full dataset downloads from the site in one click.
Sovereignty is the AI story of 2026
Every one of these is a bet on the question the Index scores: who holds the watts, the weights, and the will. The people deciding them are exactly who reads an index.
What your name on this buys you
Governments & institutes
An independent evidence base for the sovereignty agenda — cite it, launch with it, build on it. Policy institutes get the analytical frame their AI-statecraft argument needs.
Frontier labs
Your policy asks — grids, permitting, procurement reform — made by a neutral third party with data, not by you. Independent indices say what labs can’t.
Hyperscalers & chipmakers
The index quantifies why nations buy sovereign compute. Every Watts bottleneck it scores is your sales narrative — written by someone credible who isn’t selling.
Scaleups & advisors
Founding-sponsor scarcity: your logo on the reference index of the category you’re building in, for the price of one conference booth.
Elliot Leavy
Strategist, writer, and speaker based in London. I work at Elsewhen helping FTSE 100 firms and public sector organisations rebuild their structures for agentic AI. I write on AI and geopolitics for The Spectator, VentureBeat, and UnHerd — and track sovereign AI through the Machinepower Index.
The index began as research for my book on AI sovereignty — the numbers outgrew the manuscript, so I built them a home. Partners deal with me directly: no agency, no sales layer.
Sponsorship, plainly priced
Founding pricing reflects the proof stage: five names, permanently attached, on terms we won’t offer again. Sponsors never touch the scores, the methodology, or which nations are included — that independence is published on the site.
Own the lens on the
century’s defining question.
Every quarter, the people deciding sovereign AI — ministers, strategy leads, sovereign investors — will reach for one number that says who is winning and why. Partners get their name on that number, and independent evidence for the argument they’re already making.
machinepowerindex.org — MPI © 2026