Governments can't afford to be passive on AI, warns Lebanese minister at Gitex

Lebanon's Minister of Technology and AI said policymakers need to have flexible frameworks and collaborate to keep up with AI that is constantly changing.

As artificial intelligence continues to evolve at a pace that far outstrips legislation, governments and the private sector need to increasingly join forces to shape the rules that will govern the technology’s future, he said.

This spirit of collaboration was front and centre at this year’s Gitex Global technology conference in Dubai, where policymakers and industry leaders emphasised the need for flexible frameworks, cross-sector partnerships and global co-operation to ensure AI is deployed responsibly.

The rapid rise of AI is forcing governments and companies to rethink how regulation is written, enforced and updated.

With applications now touching everything from healthcare and infrastructure to cybersecurity and social policy, experts say that collaboration between public institutions and the private sector is no longer optional; it’s the only way to build governance models that can keep up with innovation without stifling it.

“It starts by the government being the regulator,” Lebanon's Minister of the Displaced and Minister of State for Technology and Artificial Intelligence, Kamal Shehadi, told The National at Gitex on Monday.

“This includes having ... sandboxes, where they allow the particular line of business to develop and see how it works out and then identify those areas that require regulatory intervention.”

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Mr Shehadi said that governments cannot afford to play a passive role and, in some cases, must act as “a catalyst for investment”, particularly in sectors such as healthcare and social welfare where AI has transformative potential.

“In many industries … it would require the government to also step in and either be a catalyst or even invest to get this started,” he said.

Flexible but firm

The rapid evolution of AI means policymakers are constantly playing catch-up.

“We have to recognise that we’re not going to be, as policymakers, as fast as the technology,” Mr Shehadi said.

He added that the way for policymakers to keep up with the technology is by always having flexible frameworks. “The more flexible the framework, the more it can adapt to new situations.”

While certain areas, such as privacy, cybersecurity and deepfakes, should be regulated now, Mr Shehadi cautioned that it is “premature” to legislate other aspects that remain poorly understood.

Effective governance, he said, will also require input beyond government. “You have to create the forum for government, the private sector, academia, and civil society to be represented and to be heard,” said Mr Shehadi.

For smaller nations, such as Lebanon, collaboration is not optional but essential. Mr Shehadi argued that countries in the Arab world must recognise AI as a global value chain and identify how their capabilities complement one another.

The minister said Lebanon has the potential to contribute meaningfully to international AI development by building partnerships beyond its borders.

“I see Lebanon as playing a role in a regional and global value chain and AI,” he said.

“Take health care, for example, where Lebanon has excellence. It's about putting these industries or sectors of activity together through formal agreements and facilitating joint research, development, roll-out of certain solutions, experimenting with AI in one country to be of use to the other country.”

Industry’s role

From the corporate side, companies are already building their own governance frameworks and see themselves as critical partners in setting standards.

Peter Koerte, global chief technology and strategy officer at Siemens, said the company is embedding AI across sectors such as energy, manufacturing and mobility by “connecting the real world to the digital world” and building use cases from aggregated industrial data.

Because Siemens operates in critical infrastructure, safety and reliability are paramount. “Industrial AI is very different than consumer AI. That's why the models need to be very accurate. So they need to be trustworthy,” Mr Koerte told The National at Gitex.

Siemens has a “test measurement catalogue” to ensure AI systems meet strict requirements and tests its algorithms in what it calls an “industrial metaverse”, a virtual environment where they are validated before being deployed in the real world.

Governments also have a critical role to play in facilitating data sharing and standard-setting, he said.

Siemens’ approach is to “convene, share and incentivise”: bringing stakeholders together, setting clear rules around data use, and encouraging rather than mandating collaboration.

Mr Koerte said that while safeguards are necessary, regulation must also be approached pragmatically, given the pace of technological change.

“The technology is usually so fast,” he said, noting that regulatory processes “usually take a year or two, so you will always be catching up.”

He added that the focus should be less on prescribing specific actions and more on “certain philosophies in terms of sharing data and how you think about things”.

Too much regulation, he warned, risks stifling innovation.

A delicate balance

The stakes are real. According to McKinsey’s The State of AI 2025, just 28 per cent of organisations using AI say their chief executive oversees AI governance, and only 17 per cent say their board does, a signal of how nascent governance structures still are.

Meanwhile, in 2024, a McKinsey survey showed 65 per cent of organisations report regular use of generative AI, but only 18 per cent have enterprise-wide governance councils in place.

That adoption – governance gap underscores why public – private collaboration is no longer optional, but necessary.

Collaboration is already delivering results in the Gulf. Siemens is working with the UAE’s Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure on a project to connect government buildings and deploy AI to cut energy consumption by up to 50 per cent.

“It's a perfect example, but you have to bring these different parties together,” Mr Koerte said.

As governments and companies wrestle with how to balance safety with speed, both sides agree that collaboration is the only viable path forward.

“I think we should regulate some aspects of AI related to privacy, cybersecurity and deep fake,” Mr Shehadi said.

“Those are things that can be regulated, but there are so many other aspects that we don’t understand well enough, and so it’s kind of premature to regulate.”

For Mr Koerte, the equation is simple: “If our customers don't like the AI, they will not go to the regulator,” he said. “They will go to us and, of course, ask for any kind of compensation.”