Iraq
GDP per capita to 2060, by scenario
Constant-rate scenario path; the 2060 endpoint levels are illustrative, not forecasts.
Factor profile
Military governments, very weak state capacity, or limited access to the AI supply chain keep these countries from converting AI into growth.
How this economy meets AI
Today’s production, workforce and automation baseline — context for the scenarios, outside the AGI Growth Index.
Where output comes from (% of GDP)
Where people work (% of employment)
Informal employment
Current automation exposure
Production and exports are resource-led. Direct workplace exposure may be limited, while global demand, commodity prices, extraction productivity and ownership of the resulting capital still transmit AI’s effects.
Sources: World Bank WDI; ILOSTAT; Global Automation Atlas (Garg, Crosta & Baier, 2026). The latest available year is shown for each measure; vintages differ, so shares may not sum to 100.
Where Iraq starts
Iraq enters the AGI era in the high-risk, volatile group: countries cut off from the AI supply chain, or whose state capacity is too weak to turn AI into growth. The scores show why. Compute and energy access is 1.1 out of 5, geopolitical positioning 1.2 and cyber resilience 1.4 — near the bottom on almost every input a modern AI build needs. Nearly all export earnings, 99.99%, come from oil. Yet Iraq is not without capacity: physical build speed is 3.2, higher than most of its archetype, reflecting projects like the Grand Faw Port and the Development Road corridor. At about $5,410 per person it is lower-middle-income, with a young population of 47 million. Ten-year trend growth is 1.9% a year. The binding constraints are institutions and power: chronic electricity shortages and fragile, contested governance.
The three paths
These are simulations, not forecasts. The Modest path is the baseline; the two AGI scenarios fork from it. Under the Modest scenario, AI stays a normal technology. Iraq would hold near its trend at 1.9% growth a year, 120th of 157. Its oil-funded economy would carry on much as today. Under Gradual takeoff, growth would rise slowly over two decades and reach 3.3% growth a year once AGI matures around 2045, ranking 144th — an economy doubling only about every 21 years. The world would pull ahead faster than Iraq could follow. Under Fast takeoff, growth would reach 4% growth a year from the early 2030s, a doubling roughly every 18 years, and Iraq would rank 138th. Note the oddity: Iraq ranks higher under Fast than under Gradual, because a faster world lifts even weakly connected economies through cheaper goods and firmer demand for oil. In every scenario Iraq stays in the lower ranks. Politics could slow or redirect any path. How Iraqis and their leaders respond to transformative AI is a variable the model holds constant.
How you would know which world you are in
The scenarios look almost identical until about 2030. So watch leading indicators, not GDP, and watch them live. Three global signals matter most. First, whether the METR task horizon curve keeps doubling every four to five months through 2027–28; METR publishes it at metr.org. Second, whether frontier lab revenue and capital spending keep compounding; Epoch AI tracks both at epoch.ai. Third, whether growth in the ten to twenty most-ready economies — the United States and China above all — breaks above trend in the early 2030s. Double-digit growth there within a couple of years of 2030 would signal a fast world; a point or two above trend by the mid-2030s a gradual one; a fade back to trend a modest one. Iraq's own signals would arrive earlier than the growth figures: whether the TotalEnergies gas-and-solar deal delivers reliable power, whether federal and Kurdish authorities settle who controls the grid, and whether oil order books stay firm as frontier economies electrify.
If growth goes explosive
For Iraq, explosive is the wrong word. Even under Fast takeoff, 4% growth a year is modest and would leave Iraq far behind. The region's middle would grow at 16.1% a year and the frontier at 39.2% a year. That is relative decline: Iraq walking while others sprint. At 4% the economy doubles only about every 18 years, so a child born today would reach adulthood in a country roughly twice as rich — a real gain, but a small share of what the frontier would post. Faster growth would raise wages and labor demand at home, easing the pressure on young Iraqis to emigrate for work. The honest downside is dependence. Iraq buys the chips, power systems and cloud services it cannot make, so it would be a rule-taker inside regimes set elsewhere, exposed to sanctions and revocable access. The hedge is to diversify partners and keep capital markets open. Even a modest build would test the state: the electricity ministry, the courts, and the federal-Kurdish dispute over the grid and oil revenue.
What Iraq can do now
Three levers follow from the scores, and two pay off whether or not AGI arrives. The first no-regret move is AI diffusion capacity, at 2.5. Digital skills, permissive rules and digitized government services carry weight even in the skeptic's world, so building them costs nothing if AI stays ordinary. Russia, a fellow member of this archetype, has moved most public services onto a single digital portal; Iraq could adapt that model to cut the paperwork that chokes its ministries. The second no-regret move is geopolitical positioning, at 1.2. Avoiding sanctions exposure and keeping access to capital markets protects the economy under every scenario. The third lever is the bet: compute and energy access, at 1.1 and the heaviest-weighted factor. It barely moves growth if AI stays ordinary, but under a fast takeoff it becomes decisive. Ending the blackouts is worth doing regardless, so start with reliable power — the TotalEnergies gas-and-solar programme is one route — before chasing data centers. A cautious government can act on the first two today and lose nothing. Open the atlas's policy editor to see how raising these scores would reshape Iraq's path under each scenario.
Use the policy editor to test how different factor scores change Iraq’s modeled path. The roadmap builder below can then incorporate those targets into a 1,000-day planning prompt.
Drafted with Claude, Anthropic’s AI model, from the atlas’s data and an editorial template set by the author.
Create a 1000-day AGI and growth roadmap prompt
This prompt can be used with Claude, ChatGPT or an open-weight model hosted on your institution’s systems. It includes the atlas material for Iraq: the country brief, economic structure, region, archetype and global scenarios. It instructs the model to ask for local information, use existing strategies and the political calendar, and preserve the atlas’s interpretation rules. The prompt is assembled in your browser; the information entered here is not sent elsewhere.
1 · Read the brief → 2 · Set targets in the policy editor → 3 · Generate and copy the prompt → 4 · Run it with an approved model, with high reasoning effort and web access where permitted
Instructions are generated in the selected language; the data annex remains in English. Translations are machine-drafted, and corrections from native speakers are welcome through the contact links on the start page.