Sri Lanka’s political drive toward Artificial Intelligence (AI) under the JVP-led NPP government is gaining headline attention but the numbers tell a very different story.
The 2026 Budget allocates just Rs. 3 billion for AI development, national data platforms, and the establishment of government-run data centres. For a field where a single mid-scale data centre can cost between Rs. 20–40 billion, experts warn that the allocation is not only inadequate it is dangerously unrealistic.
Government officials privately acknowledge that the amount is barely enough for feasibility studies, consultancy fees, and pilot projects. Yet the administration continues to promote AI as a cornerstone of its economic transformation agenda.
The gap between political rhetoric and fiscal reality raises concerns that Sri Lanka may be entering the AI race with neither the required investment nor the institutional capability.
Meanwhile, global leaders are moving at lightning pace. IFS, which maintains major operations in Sri Lanka, yesterday in New York unveiled the next generation of Industrial AI at its Industrial X Unleashed showcase highlighting exactly the kind of capabilities Sri Lanka claims it wants to build.
IFS CEO Mark Moffa emphasized that transformative AI impact lies in industrial settings, not in generic office tools. “The opportunity to drive growth using AI is now especially when applied in industry,” he said.
IFS demonstrated real-world solutions that interpret multimodal data, predict faults, prevent downtime, and enhance asset reliability precisely the high-value applications Sri Lanka hopes to adopt but is far from capable of deploying.
IFS’s global partnerships with Anthropic, Boston Dynamics, Siemens, 1X Technologies, and major clients such as Eversource and William Grant & Sons showed industrial AI functioning at scale handling robotics, utility grids, manufacturing operations, energy networks, and advanced automation.
By contrast, Sri Lanka does not yet have a single hyperscale data centre, no national AI cloud, and no enterprise-grade computing infrastructure required to support applied AI. The country’s most experienced AI talent is concentrated in the private sector, while senior government officials overseeing AI policy lack exposure to machine learning engineering, MLOps, large-scale data management, or industrial automation.
This knowledge gap leaves the 2026 allocation of Rs. 3 billion looking even more insufficient. Building AI infrastructure requires:billions for purpose-built data centres,high-performance compute (HPC) clusters,cybersecurity frameworks,specialised AI engineering teams and sector-specific deployment models
Sri Lanka’s total allocation cannot even fund 10% of a single modern data centre, let alone a nationwide AI ecosystem.
Analysts warn that the government risks repeating past failures—overpromising grand technology initiatives without the required investment, engineering capability, or institutional planning. While global giants such as IFS and PwC operate with deep technical leadership and multi-billion-dollar ecosystems, Sri Lanka’s public service remains underprepared and under-skilled.
The concern is clear: the government is attempting an AI leap with neither the runway nor the aircraft.
Unless Sri Lanka urgently increases its investment, attracts technical leadership, and builds institutional knowledge, the country’s AI ambitions may end up as yet another politically packaged but technically hollow promise, overshadowed by global leaders who are already decades ahead.
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