AI regulation in Papua New Guinea (2026)

Released February 27, 2026 by the Acting ICT Minister for public consultation. The framework positions AI as the 'engine room' of government decision-making under a model of Digital Government × Digital Public Infrastructure ^ AI, covering recruitment, contract awards, and policy development.

The Draft National Sovereign Digital Transformation and AI Strategy was published March 23, 2026 for broad stakeholder consultation. It expands the AI Adoption Framework into a whole-of-government blueprint covering sovereignty, cloud infrastructure, digital identity (SevisPass), and AI capability.

Both draft documents call for the enactment of a National Artificial Intelligence Act and a Data Governance and Protection Act. Neither bill has been introduced to Parliament as of the consultation period.

The DICT Secretary explicitly warned that reliance on foreign-trained AI models risks misrepresenting Pacific cultures — particularly oral and community-based knowledge — and the strategy aims to shift toward locally developed, culturally appropriate AI systems hosted on sovereign infrastructure.

The Draft Framework establishes that government agencies must maintain internal registers of AI systems used in public services, and higher-impact systems will face stronger review, testing, and monitoring requirements before deployment.

PNG launched its first sovereign AI data centre in April 2026, providing the national hosting infrastructure intended to underpin AI deployment aligned with the Draft Strategy's requirement for locally controlled compute and data environments.