AI readiness for sustainable development: Europe’s regulatory burden and the gaps in innovation and cybersecurity

Research examines the relationships among digital maturity, artificial intelligence (AI) readiness, and cybersecurity resilience in EU member states, highlighting their collective relevance to sustainable digital development.Drawing on multiple international datasets-including the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI), the Government AI Readiness Index, the ITU Global Cybersecurity Index, and the European Repository of Cyber Incidents (EuRepoC)-we develop a novel composite indicator, the Digital Resilience Index (DRI).The aim is to test whether higher levels of digitalisation and AI readiness are associated with stronger cybersecurity capacity, and to identify imbalances in which rapid digital growth is not matched by adequate resilience, potentially undermining the long-term sustainability of digital governance systems.Methodologically, the study employs comparative quantitative analysis, correlation techniques, and robustness checks (Spearman coefficients and bootstrap confidence intervals) to ensure the stability of the results.The findings reveal that digitally advanced countries tend to report more incidents due to stronger monitoring and transparency, but these incidents are typically less severe.They confirm that the absence of attacks does not define resilience, but rather the ability to detect, contain, and mitigate them effectively-an essential condition for sustainable, trustworthy and future-proof digital ecosystems.By introducing an integrated index and empirically demonstrating its policy relevance, the study contributes to academic debates on digital governance and sustainable development, while offering actionable insights for policymakers.Specifically, it highlights the need to embed security-by-design principles into digital transformation, strengthen GovTech reforms, and adopt AI governance frameworks that support resilient, inclusive and sustainable digital societies.