Malta's national AI strategy and Ethical AI Framework

What it is

Malta was among the first countries to publish a national AI strategy. The work began with Malta – Towards an AI Strategy, a high-level policy document produced by the Malta.AI Taskforce in March 2019 as the blueprint for the national strategy. The strategy itself, Malta – The Ultimate AI Launchpad, set a vision for Malta to become the “Ultimate AI Launchpad” by 2030, with actions to be taken between 2019 and 2023.

The 2019 strategy rests on three strategic pillars, investment, start-ups and innovation, public sector adoption, and private sector adoption, and three enablers, education and workforce, the legal and ethical framework, and ecosystem infrastructure. Together they carry 72 actions, including six AI projects in traffic management, education, health, customer service, tourism and utilities. The Malta Digital Innovation Authority (MDIA) is responsible for monitoring and governing the strategy’s implementation.

Alongside it sits the Malta Ethical AI Framework, Malta – Towards Trustworthy AI. The MDIA describes it as a set of guiding principles and trustworthy AI governance and control practices, intended as a practical and workable guide and enabler for AI practitioners. A draft was published for public consultation in August 2019.

The 2025 realignment

The MDIA says the 2019 strategy made significant progress, with over 80% of its measures established or partially or fully executed and others now obsolete, but that rapid technological, regulatory and social change required a realignment. The realigned strategy has been released for public consultation.

It moves away from a technology-first approach and puts societal well-being and sustainability at its core, with the vision of a trusted AI ecosystem. It has two enablers, cultivating an informed public and a skilled workforce, and strengthening regulatory, policy, security and support structures. Its three pillars are data and infrastructure, leveraging AI in public services and private-sector competitiveness, and advancing AI through research and development.

Five foundational principles underpin it.

• Diversity, equality, fairness and anti-discrimination, so that AI systems are inclusive and free from harmful bias.
• Accountability, responsibility and legal liability, promoting assessable, responsible AI.
• Transparency, explainability, human agency and oversight, with mandatory human oversight.
• Safety, preventing harm and ensuring technical robustness.
• Privacy, data protection and data governance.

The strategy is designed as an evergreen framework aligned with Malta Vision 2050, and proposes 83 measures for the short to medium term.

Who it applies to

The strategy is government policy. It shapes public sector adoption, funding and support for AI in Malta, but places no legal duties on organisations. The Ethical AI Framework is voluntary. Both matter in practice because public bodies and regulators in Malta read AI use through the same principles, and because suppliers to the Maltese public sector should expect questions based on them.

How it relates to other frameworks

The binding layer in Malta is the EU AI Act, implemented through Malta’s Artificial Intelligence Regulations, and the GDPR. The realigned strategy’s five principles track the AI Act’s themes and the EU’s Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI. An organisation that already works to the AI Act, ISO/IEC 42001 or the OECD AI Principles will find little in the strategy that asks anything new.

A note on this page

This is Aicura’s summary of Malta’s AI strategy documents. It is not legal advice. Read the strategy and framework documents on the MDIA website, and check there for the final version of the realigned strategy.