SAIL
SAIL rating system
The most comprehensive system for evaluating sovereign AI strategies and systems.
Barcelona Supercomputing Centre | SAIL-certified AI infrastructure facility
SAIL-certified sovereign AI systems are better systems
SAIL (Sovereign AI Leadership) is a rating and evaluation system that provides a structured assessment of a country's or agency's AI sovereignty across technical, legal, and governance dimensions. It offers a point-based system that signals resilience, control, and strategic leadership.
SAIL applies to national strategies, ministries, agencies, and public programs that deploy or govern AI systems. Whether assessing sovereign capacity in applications, data, models, or infrastructure, SAIL helps governments identify strengths and dependencies, optimize capacity, and benchmark progress over time.
How SAIL works
SAIL evaluates sovereignty across seven layers — from applications and orchestration to compute and legal governance — through credit categories tailored for each assessment track. An entity must first satisfy baseline prerequisites, then accrue points toward a certification level: Certified, Silver, Gold, or Platinum.
SAIL assessment process
Select track and scope
Determine whether the assessment applies to a national strategy, ministry, agency, or specific program, and review relevant prerequisites.
Define the assessment
Provide baseline documentation and define the scope of AI systems, governance processes, and dependencies.
Build the scorecard
Choose credits aligned with your strategy and map responsibilities for evidence gathering and documentation.
Implement and document
Execute technical, organizational, and legal actions needed to meet prerequisites and pursue credit categories.
Complete peer review
Submit evidence for independent review, scoring, and certification level determination.
SAIL tools and resources
Specification
Complete methodology: seven layers, credits, flags, and control-maturity levels.
Models
Sovereign AI models tagged by the interests they serve.
Countries
Interest profiles and illustrative stack-control assessments.
Interest decoder
Reference guide to the five interests behind sovereign AI claims.
Cases
Annotated examples: Mistral, OpenAI for Countries, allied public models, and more.
Featured essay
Why decision-makers care about sovereign AI — and when the spec applies.
Getting started
- Review prerequisites — Ensure your entity meets the minimum requirements (e.g. legal authority, inventory of AI use).
- Select the relevant track — National, subnational, or programmatic sovereignty.
- Explore the credit library — Identify which credits are achievable and which require further capacity building.
About SAIL
SAIL is developed and maintained by the Public AI Network as part of its work on AI as public infrastructure.