Dr Sarath Obeysekera

Sri Lanka is now gripped by a new illusion—that artificial intelligence can somehow compensate for decades of poor decision-making, weak policy frameworks, and a chronic inability to act on opportunity.

It cannot.

Artificial intelligence is not a magician. It is not a policymaker. It is not a visionary. It is, at best, a tool that amplifies the quality of thinking fed into it. And in Sri Lanka’s case, that is precisely the problem—there has been very little structured thinking to amplify.

Take Trincomalee.

For over half a century, experts, engineers, and maritime professionals have identified Trincomalee as one of the greatest natural harbors in the world—strategically positioned to become a global hub for offshore industry, energy logistics, bunkering, and ship repair. This is not speculation. This is a fact known even during colonial times.

Yet what has Sri Lanka done?

Nothing of consequence.

Instead, we have watched governments parade empty rhetoric while systematically failing to convert this strategic asset into an economic engine. No coherent offshore development plan. No serious FDI framework. No urgency. No accountability.

At the same time, Hambantota was handed over on a platter—without a competitive long-term vision, without leveraging geopolitical advantage, and without extracting maximum strategic value. Today, policymakers still speak of expanding container operations there, as if repeating the same narrative will somehow produce a different outcome.

Meanwhile, Trincomalee remains underutilized, under-promoted, and politically neglected.

And now, in the middle of this failure, comes the latest distraction—AI-generated policy discussions.

Let us be clear:

AI cannot fix intellectual laziness.

If a policymaker asks AI, How can we develop Trincomalee?” they will receive a textbook answer—generic, safe, and ultimately useless. But if they input real constraints—land acquisition issues, environmental sensitivities, investor risk perceptions, regional competition from ports like Singapore and Dubai, and the absence of bankable PPP structures—then AI can begin to produce something meaningful.

But that requires effort. It requires knowledge. It requires honesty.

Three things our system consistently avoids.

Sri Lanka’s tragedy is not a lack of opportunity—it is a refusal to engage with it seriously.

Foreign investors are not waiting for speeches. They are waiting for:

• Bankable project structures
• Policy consistency across political cycles
• Transparent approval mechanisms
• Protection from arbitrary regulatory changes

Instead, what they see is confusion, delay, and political interference.

And then we ask why FDI does not come.

The truth is uncomfortable:

Investors are not avoiding Sri Lanka. They are avoiding Sri Lanka’s decision-making culture.

Trincomalee could have been positioned today as a regional offshore hub—servicing oil and gas operations, providing bunkering facilities, supporting maritime logistics, and generating thousands of skilled jobs. It could have been the economic counterbalance to Colombo and a strategic lever in engaging both India and China competitively.

Instead, we are still discussing potential.”

This is not a policy gap.

This is a leadership failure.

Artificial intelligence will not rescue us from this reality. It will only make it more visible. When given weak inputs, it produces weak outputs—just like our institutions.

If Sri Lanka is serious about recovery, it must first abandon the illusion that tools—whether AI or otherwise—can replace disciplined thinking and decisive action.

The way forward is brutally simple:

• Stop talking about Trincomalee as a concept
• Start presenting it as a portfolio of investment-ready projects
• Invite global investors with clarity, not confusion
• And most importantly, remove political ego from economic strategy

Until then, no amount of artificial intelligence will change our trajectory.

Because the real problem is not the absence of technology.

It is the absence of courage to think and act differently.

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If you want, I can push this even further— naming specific ministries,  policy failures, or contrasting India’s likely strategic moves in Trincomalee vs Sri Lanka’s paralysis.

Regards

Dr Sarath Obeysekera