Bahrain Wants to Write the GCC's AI Rulebook, and the National Portal Is Where the Plan Lives
Bahrain is trying to do something the bigger Gulf players have so far refused to do. It wants to write a unified rulebook for how Gulf governments adopt artificial intelligence, and it is doing it from a country of under two million people. The latest push, updated on 15 April 2026 on Bahrain's National Portal, pulls together a 15-page National AI Policy, a 20-page AI Procurement Guideline, and a new National Research Committee for Artificial Intelligence under one roof.
The one-stop AI portal is the real signal
Most MENA governments have scattered AI policy across ministries, digital agencies, and standalone councils. Bahrain has now consolidated the whole stack on a single, citable government page, linked from the National Portal. That matters more than it sounds. The Information & eGovernment Authority (iGA) owns the core documents, which means government-to-government requests, procurement clarifications, and international partnership enquiries now route through one authority rather than five.
The page lists the National AI Policy, a 15-page PDF that codifies four pillars, legal compliance with the Personal Data Protection Law, AI adoption, public awareness, and international cooperation. It sits alongside the AI Procurement Guidelines, a 20-page document developed with the World Economic Forum, and guidance adopted from the GCC's Ethics of AI Use manual.
Bahrain's pitch is coordination, not scale
The Kingdom cannot win the Gulf AI race on compute, on capital, or on headline-grabbing sovereign funds. What it can do is be the place where the rulebook is drafted. On 24 April 2025, Bahrain formally presented its initiative for a unified GCC AI strategy at the sixth gathering of the GCC AI and Emerging Technologies Working Group. The GCC Executive Committee for eGovernment, meeting in Kuwait, approved the initiative and tasked Bahrain with preparing the strategy document.
That decision gave Manama something it has been looking for since the launch of Bahrain's Vision 2030 agenda, a clear institutional remit on a region-level file. Bahrain's parliament then pushed further. MPs Khaled Bu Onk, Ahmed Al Salloom, and Hisham Al Awadhi submitted a joint proposal urging a shared Gulf approach, which was unanimously approved by the financial and economic affairs committee and referred to the Cabinet.
A unified Gulf approach is a step towards a more joined-up regional system and stronger exchange of knowledge and experience, to support Bahrain's position as a Gulf hub for artificial intelligence.
By The Numbers
- 15-page National AI Policy published by iGA, updated 15 April 2026 on the National Portal
- 20-page AI Procurement Guideline (1,805 KB) co-developed with the World Economic Forum
- 4 policy pillars: legal compliance, adoption, awareness, and international cooperation
- 3 MPs (Bu Onk, Al Salloom, Al Awadhi) backed the unified GCC AI strategy proposal in parliament
- 1 National Research Committee for AI established under the updated framework
What the procurement guidelines actually change
For anyone selling AI into Bahraini public sector buyers, this is the file that matters. The guidelines set out how ministries should evaluate AI vendors, what data disclosures are required before signing, and how to handle model retraining, explainability, and bias auditing. For regional cloud and model vendors including Microsoft, AWS, Oracle, and G42, Bahrain has just become the Gulf country with the clearest purchasing playbook.
The practical consequences are already visible. The iGA's new Innovation and Advanced Technologies Directorate is running coordination with academia and tech firms, and is expected to be the first point of contact when the unified GCC strategy comes up for Cabinet approval later in 2026. That gives Bahraini officials a leverage position on a file that will shape billions of dirhams, riyals, and dinars of public procurement across the region over the next decade.
| Document | Owner | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| National AI Policy v1.0 | iGA | Four-pillar governance framework |
| AI Procurement Guidelines | iGA + WEF | Public-sector AI buying rules |
| GCC AI Ethics Manual (adopted) | GCC Executive Committee | Regional ethics alignment |
| Unified GCC AI Strategy (in drafting) | Bahrain (lead) | Region-wide coordination text |
Risks Bahrain is not talking about
A policy-first strategy only works if the bigger neighbours actually use it. Saudi Arabia has just declared 2026 its Year of AI under SDAIA leadership. The UAE has positioned itself as the leading global AI hub in the Stanford AI Index. Both have their own national frameworks. Bahrain's draft has to thread a narrow needle. It must be specific enough to create real convergence, but flexible enough that Riyadh and Abu Dhabi do not feel their own strategies are being subordinated.
A fresh MENA AI harmonisation push under SDAIA hints at the same ambition from the Saudi side. Whether the two tracks merge or run in parallel will define the 2027 regulatory map.
The shared Gulf approach should link education with regulation, allowing innovation while keeping ethics in view, alongside stronger public-private work.
Three things to watch next
- Cabinet approval timeline for Bahrain's unified GCC AI strategy document
- Whether SDAIA's harmonisation initiative and Bahrain's draft converge into a single text
- First multilateral AI procurement tender using the Bahraini guidelines as template
Use effectively.
Ensuring AI systems pursue goals that match human intentions and values.
The ability to understand and describe how an AI reached a particular decision.
When an AI system produces unfair or skewed results, often reflecting prejudices in training data.
The processing power needed to train and run AI models.