Mauritius, long celebrated as an offshore-finance hub, now faces a new challenge: can the island remain competitive and export world-class digital and financial products instead of back-office services? As other nations pour billions into artificial intelligence, the window to secure talent, compute, and capital is closing fast. Mauritius has made some good moves, but it will need to keep up with the unforgiving pace of the AI race.

Mauritius has built its reputation as a trusted financial hub—stable, multilingual, and globally connected. But in 2025, the country faces a new, far more competitive challenge: can it reinvent itself as a true technology innovator, exporting digital products and intellectual property to the world?

Why? Artificial Intelligence (AI).

AI isn’t just another trend—it’s fundamentally changing industries, reshaping jobs, and setting off a new, silent arms race—not for territory or resources, but for technological supremacy. Countries everywhere are investing heavily in AI and digital infrastructure, determined to secure their place in the new economy. Moving early and effectively is vital.

The real question is whether Mauritius is doing enough to keep pace—investing in our people, building the right infrastructure, and creating the conditions for innovation to thrive.

Let’s look at recent Policy Actions

Most recently, the Fiscal Year 2025–2026 National Budget titled “From Abyss to Prosperity: Rebuilding the Bridge to the Future” signals a bold new direction for Mauritius, with digital transformation and AI placed at the center of the country’s development agenda. Key measures include a Rs 25 million AI Innovation Programme to establish a national AI Centre and support start-ups, a substantial Rs 200 million boost for research and development, and the launch of a new Tier IV Government Data Centre alongside a National Cyber Operations Centre. Education and workforce development are also in focus, with compulsory AI education in schools and Rs 550 million allocated for reskilling and upskilling. Legal frameworks are also being modernized to streamline e-trade, digital signatures, and tech investment permits.

These initiatives reflect a clear intent to position Mauritius at the forefront of the digital economy. However, with a population of about 1.2 million, the AI allocation amounts to just Rs 19 per resident—only 0.011 percent of the total government budget. By contrast, Singapore invests more than 50 times as much per resident in AI each year and has committed S$1 bn over the past 5 years. For Mauritius, the ambition is visible, but the resources are thinly spread.

Threat and Opportunity

Mauritius’s financial services, global business, management and ICT directly and indirectly contribute about 25% of GDP and 10% of national employment. These sectors attract international business due to Mauritius’s favorable tax regime, strong regulatory standards, and strategic location.

However, this ecosystem faces a significant threat from AI-driven automation. Many of the roles that support offshore and financial activities like call center agents, compliance analysts, KYC onboarding officers, document reviewers and back-office administrators are already being automated, and thus the demand for traditional administrative and back-office roles in Mauritius could decline sharply, putting thousands of Mauritian jobs at risk within the next five years. After all, the question becomes: why would they continue to base their operations here, relying on local staff, when technology can do the same work at a fraction of the cost.

But the island can turn the automation threat into an opportunity by developing and exporting AI-driven regulatory technology (reg-tech) and fund administration solutions. With its strong reputation in compliance and financial services, the country could build specialized AI products to help global firms meet evolving regulatory demands more efficiently. By investing in local talent and fostering partnerships between fintech startups and established management companies, Mauritius could position itself as a regional leader in exporting digital compliance tools, automated KYC/AML platforms, and fund administration services—creating new high-value jobs and tapping into fast-growing global markets.

Mauritius must innovate—by moving up the value chain, investing in advanced digital skills, and developing higher-value financial and tech services—to avoid companies relocating their operations to jurisdictions that offer greater technological sophistication and cost savings through automation.

The Global Shift: Speed Matters

History shows that nations that move quickly in times of technological upheaval set the pace for decades. The United States saw major economic gains as the computer and digital technology boom fueled rapid productivity growth, with the digital economy alone adding trillions of dollars in value and millions of jobs beginning in the early 2000s.

Japan’s rapid adoption of electronics and automotive technologies after World War II fueled an “economic miracle,” with GDP per capita skyrocketing from about $1,000 in 1950 to over $40,000 by the 1990s. Taiwan has a similar story, where it transformed itself from an agrarian economy to a global tech powerhouse by investing in semiconductor manufacturing and R&D, driving its GDP per capita from roughly $1,400 after World War II to over $50,000 today. China’s aggressive push into digital infrastructure, high-tech manufacturing, and AI has powered sustained growth rates and lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty, setting the course for China to become the world’s leading economy by the end of the decade.

Early technology adopters are the ones that capture large market shares (think Taiwan and semiconductors). AI offers the same inflection point today. A “Silicon Island” vision is where Mauritius nurtures capital, talent, and policy in applied AI today, so it can ship world-class digital products tomorrow—and lock in a share of this new global market cycle.

Room for improvement

Mauritius’ digital landscape remains uneven despite the ongoing reforms and the new Digital Transformation Blueprint. The government portal hosts over 300 websites and around 130 online services, but many citizens still find it easier to visit offices in person than to navigate these platforms.

On the talent side, only 20% of tertiary students pursue STEM fields, contributing to an annual shortfall of about 5,000 IT professionals. The island has incubators like Turbine and La Plage Factory, and a handful of promising startups but the pipeline of true tech product companies is small. Most digital businesses focus on outsourcing or importing software, not building local intellectual property for export.

While Mauritius ranks 2nd in Africa and 59th globally in the Global Startup Ecosystem Index 2024, successful startup exits and scale-ups remain rare, with 68% of entrepreneurs citing access to capital as their biggest hurdle. All these indicate that the island still faces major challenges in becoming an innovation hub.

How Are Others Doing It?

India has put technology at the core of its national growth strategy, pledging about US $1.25 billion for the five-year IndiaAI Mission and another US $1.8 billion to expand Digital India. These support an ecosystem of more than 100,000 start-ups—now the world’s third largest—and industry estimates indicate that data and AI could add roughly US $450–500 billion, or close to 10 percent of GDP, by 2025. The government backs this with strong digital public services and targeted STEM education.

Nigeria is Africa’s standout tech success. Lagos is ranked the world’s fastest-growing tech ecosystem and has seen its startup ecosystem value grow 11.6 times since 2017 and is home to five unicorns (companies valued at $1 billion or more): Interswitch, Flutterwave, Jumia, OPay, and Moniepoint. By 2024, Lagos had hosted over 2,000 tech startups and Nigerian startups attracted more than $400 million in investment that year only. Government support for broadband, digital skills, and fintech-friendly regulation has helped make Lagos a magnet for global investors and a model for rapid tech-driven growth across the continent

The Bottom Line

Choosing to become a “Silicon Island” is about seizing this rare moment to shape the country’s future before the next wave of global innovation leaves us behind. When businesses fail to embrace new technologies, they lose. The same goes for countries.

Fanishka Sookharee: Finance and technology professional based in New York City. She holds an MA in Finance and International Economics from Johns Hopkins University, USA