Panama
GDP per capita to 2060, by scenario
Constant-rate scenario path; the 2060 endpoint levels are illustrative, not forecasts.
Factor profile
Their exports are food, gold, diamonds, logistics or a small share of output, which AI neither threatens nor much boosts, so AI reaches them mainly through their own firms and governments.
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
Several parts of the economy could transmit AI’s effects. The pace depends on adoption by firms, connectivity and movement of workers between sectors.
This country is not covered by the Global Automation Atlas’s public country file; its task-level exposure work for other countries is at automationatlas.org.
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 Panama starts
Panama enters the AGI era as a stalled-middle economy: upper-middle income, middling scores, and a widening gap to every faster group. Yet one score stands out. Physical build speed is 4.5 out of 5, reflecting the expanded Panama Canal, Central America's first metro, the Tocumen airport hub and the Colón Free Zone. Its dollarized banking sector and logistics trade are real strengths. What holds it back is thinner ground. Compute and energy access scores 1.1, near the bottom, because Panama has almost no data center capacity. Catch-up headroom and geopolitical positioning both sit at 2, a sign of limited room to import gains and a weak seat at the tables that decide chip access. Ten-year trend growth of 4.2% a year is strong for the region. Income is about $19,790 per person.
The three paths
These are simulations, not forecasts. The Modest path is the baseline, and the two AGI scenarios fork from it. Under the Modest scenario, AI stays a normal technology. Panama would gain a little on trend: 4.4% growth a year, 38th of 157. Its strengths in trade and finance keep it competitive in an ordinary world. Under Gradual takeoff, growth would climb over two decades and reach 9.1% a year once AGI matures around 2045, a doubling every eight years. But its rank would fall to 69th, because faster economies pull ahead while Panama's middling scores hold it back. Under Fast takeoff, growth would reach 12.2% a year from the early 2030s, a doubling every six years, and its rank would recover to 62nd. Even so, Panama would trail the leaders. Regulation and politics could slow or redirect any of these paths. How Panamanians and their government respond to transformative AI is a variable the model holds constant.
How you would know which world you are in
The three scenarios look almost the same until about 2030. So watch leading indicators, not GDP, and check them live rather than trust a snapshot. 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 point to a fast world; a point or two above trend by the mid-2030s to a gradual one; a fade back to trend to a modest one. Panama's own signals would arrive earlier: any hyperscaler hosting commitment on Panamanian soil, financial close on new power generation, and the order books at the Colón Free Zone and the canal.
If growth goes explosive
Explosive is relative. At 12.2% growth a year under fast takeoff, Panama would run ahead of its region, whose economies would grow around 9.2%. But it would trail the frontier badly, as the United States compounds more than three times as fast. Against its own history the change would be real: an economy doubling every six years means a child starting school today finishing in a country twice as rich. Trade, logistics and finance would deepen, and rising labor demand and wages would draw the migrant workers Panama already attracts. There is a way this leaves Panama worse off. Its computing power would be rented, not owned, and a weak geopolitical seat, a score of 2, leaves it a rule-taker caught between Washington and Beijing, pressure already visible over the canal ports. The hedge is to own capacity and spread its partners. Even then, the pace-setter shifts to the state: the canal authority, banking supervisors, permitting offices and courts, whose limits the 2023 copper-mine protests exposed.
What Panama can do now
Three levers follow from the scores, and two pay off whether or not AGI arrives. The first is AI diffusion, low at 2.3. Digital skills, permissive deployment rules and digitized government services raise growth even in the skeptic's world, so this is a no-regret move Panama can start today. The second is geopolitical positioning, also low at 2. Deepening trusted-partner frameworks and protecting access to capital markets is worth doing under any scenario, and it becomes vital for chip access if AI takes off. A cautious government can act on both now at no loss. The third lever is the bet. Compute and energy access, at 1.1, barely moves growth if AI stays ordinary, but under fast takeoff it becomes Panama's single biggest lever. Closing it means packaging cheap power, land and fast permits to attract data center investment. Mexico did this in Querétaro, now one of Latin America's fastest-growing data center clusters. To explore how moving these scores would reshape Panama's path under each scenario, open the atlas's policy editor.
Use the policy editor to test how different factor scores change Panama’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 Panama: 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.