Lebanon's LEAP Plan Wants 10% of GDP From AI by 2035

Kamal Shehadi , Lebanon's first Minister for Artificial Intelligence, has unveiled a five-year strategy called LEAP , a roadmap meant to turn the country into a regional AI hub and pull the tech sector into a serious share of GDP. LEAP breaks into four stages: Launch, Enact, Advance, and Promote. It begins with a 100-day window during which the ministry will roll out pilot AI programs with the Ministries of Education, Justice, and Health. By year five, the target is a fully operational tech-enabled economy with Lebanon recognized as a regional AI talent hub. The Numbers Behind LEAP Shehadi has anchored the plan in hard targets. He is aiming for Lebanon to place among the top 50 countries globally for AI-readiness within five years, and for AI to contribute 10 percent of the country's GDP by 2035, worth a reported $3 billion to $4 billion in economic activity. The ministry is also targeting $500 million in AI investment and a doubling of the local AI workforce. The initial ministerial budget sits at a reported $30 million to $50 million across 2025 and 2026. That money is earmarked for generative AI deployments, a national digital ID, digitized payments, a data exchange capability, and a federating "Super App" for citizen services. Lebanon's Infrastructure Problem The plan lands in a country without a single major data center, with patchy broadband, and with no settled AI regulatory framework. Shehadi has said addressing those gaps is part of the work, and LEAP leans on international partnerships and private investment to close them faster than a government budget alone could. Separately, MEATechWatch has reported that LEAP is also tied to a $1 billion foreign direct investment target for the tech sector by 2030 and 10,000 new tech jobs over the next five years. The ministry has not officially confirmed those specific numbers. Where LEAP Fits With Other Moves LEAP arrives as AUB prepares to open its School of Computing and Data Sciences in September 2026 and as the T