"I was told my speech was too long. The secret is that I used ChatGPT to cut it in half." The witty remark by Syrian entrepreneur Abdulsalam Haykal, at the opening of his induction speech as minister of telecommunications in the new government on Saturday, March 29, made the rounds on social media, delighting Syrians fond of new technologies.

Among those gathered at the People's Palace, on the heights of Damascus, the phrase even brought a smile to the face of the transitional president, Ahmed Al-Charaa. The 40-something, who since 2017 had built a model of administration rooted in new technologies in the Idlib province before seizing Damascus on December 8, 2024, promised to bring Syria up to speed with digital transformation and artificial intelligence.

You have 89.37% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.