Comment by Riaz Haq on July 27, 2026 at 8:07pm

Pakistan's Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication (MoITT) unveiled the National Artificial Intelligence Advancement Initiative (NAAI) to . [1]

Core Goals and Structure

• Seven AI Hubs: Planned for Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar, Quetta, Muzaffarabad, and Gilgit.

• Startup Support: Aims to incubate 560 AI-driven startups and provide non-dilutive seed grants to 150 of them.

• Ecosystem Integration: Unites academia, industry, researchers, and investors under a single national framework to advance the National AI Policy. [1]

Comment by Riaz Haq on August 11, 2026 at 12:14pm

Indus Cloud Launches Pakistan’s First Cisco AI GPU Cluster - Profit by Pakistan Today

https://profit.pakistantoday.com.pk/2026/08/11/master-groups-indus-...

Bringing the country's first brand-new NVIDIA H200 GPUs on Pakistani soil to accelerate the nation's AI revolution

LAHORE: Master Group's Indus Cloud, Pakistan's First AI-Ready, Renewable-Powered Enterprise Cloud, today announced the launch of the country's first Cisco AI GPU Cluster powered by the latest NVIDIA H200 Tensor Core GPUs, making brand-new NVIDIA H200 GPUs available on Pakistani soil for the very first time.

This milestone marks a significant step in supercharging Pakistan's AI ecosystem by providing researchers, enterprises, startups, universities, and government organizations with access to world-class accelerated computing infrastructure—without the latency, compliance, and data sovereignty challenges of relying solely on overseas cloud providers.

The Cisco AI infrastructure, integrated with NVIDIA H200 GPUs, is purpose-built to support demanding AI workloads including large language models (LLMs), generative AI, AI training and fine-tuning, high-performance inference, computer vision, and advanced analytics.

Hosted within Indus Cloud's purpose-built AI-ready infrastructure, the platform delivers enterprise-grade performance, scalability, security, and reliability while enabling organizations to build and deploy AI solutions from within Pakistan.

"Artificial Intelligence will define the next era of economic growth, industrial competitiveness, and national innovation. As Master Group, we are building the infrastructure Pakistan needed someone to build. We must build the digital infrastructure necessary to participate in this transformation—not simply consume it. The launch of Pakistan's first Cisco AI GPU Cluster powered by NVIDIA H200 GPUs is an important milestone towards creating sovereign AI capability and empowering our innovators, enterprises, and public sector with world-class computing resources."

— Shahzad Malik, Managing Director, Master Group of Industries

"This is more than the launch of new infrastructure; it is the foundation for Pakistan's AI future. By bringing the latest NVIDIA H200 GPUs into the country, Indus Cloud is eliminating a major barrier for organizations seeking access to advanced AI compute. Our mission is to make enterprise-grade AI infrastructure accessible, scalable, and locally available so Pakistan's brightest minds can innovate faster while keeping their data and workloads within the country."

-----------

Indus Cloud operates and plans enterprise infrastructure facilities with capacities ranging up to 20MW. This includes a solar-powered setup scaling up to 5MW in Lahore, a site in Nooriabad with up to 20MW of capacity, and broader regional AI data center ecosystem deployments in Pakistan (such as Sky47's 8.5MWKarakorum-01 facility in Islamabad developed with ZTE). [1, 2, 3, 4]
Facility Capacities and Locations
Lahore Facility: Features a 500 high-powered rack setup in NSIT Park backed by solar power up to 5MW.
Nooriabad Facility: Designed with up to 20MW of total capacity.
** Islamabad / Related Ecosystem Projects:** Connected large-scale AI and sovereign cloud platforms feature initial power footprints scaling at 8.5MW. [1, 2, 3, 4]
Technology and Infrastructure Highlights
Power & Efficiency: Utilizes advanced deployments like Huawei PowerPod systems to reduce physical footprint and lower energy consumption.
AI Readiness: Built to host high-density AI clusters, enterprise cloud computing, and sovereign data storage workloads within Pakistan. [1, 2, 3]

Comment by Riaz Haq on September 27, 2026 at 8:29am

Gates Foundation Pledges $1 Billion to Combat A.I. Inequality - The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/15/technology/bill-gates-ai-foundat...

The funding will be used to support A.I. projects in health care, agriculture and education, and to develop data sets in more languages.

———

The Gates Foundation has pledged to spend at least $1 billion over the next two years to expand global access to artificial intelligence and use it to tackle social inequalities.

The intervention came amid a growing debate over the risks posed by the technology, with many of the industry’s leading figures calling for a slowdown in its development.

The foundation’s annual Goalkeepers report, released on Monday, advocated an urgent effort to ensure that A.I. “helps narrow gaps between the richest and poorest rather than widening them.”


———

“The window to influence who benefits, and how soon, is short,” the report argued.

If A.I. keeps developing as it is, “the most capable tools will be built first for the people and institutions most able to pay for them,” according to the report, “not necessarily for those who could benefit most.”

Most of the data used to train the early large language models was in English, according to the report, “leaving many communities that could benefit from A.I. poorly represented in the data on which these tools were built.”

The foundation said that it would divide the new funding among external groups working on its priorities, spanning work like encouraging A.I. use among doctors, farmers and teachers, or developing data sets in more languages. Though significant, the funding is a small fraction of the hundreds of billions of dollars at the disposal of commercial A.I. firms.

Bill Gates, the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft and the chairman of the Gates Foundation, has warned that A.I. could pose a grave threat to jobs and human life. “In terms of equity, A.I. will either be the greatest equalizer ever invented, or the worst source of injustice,” he wrote in an essay on his personal website last month, predicting that the transition to the new A.I. era would be one of the “most turbulent times in human history.”


According to Mr. Gates, who no longer works at Microsoft, the tech industry is knowingly downplaying threats posed by A.I., because there is so much money on the line.

The Gates Foundation’s announcement came after the chief executive of Anthropic called for a global slowdown of A.I. development after one of the company’s employees quit over concerns about the safety of the technology. Top executives at other major A.I. companies, including Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI; Elon Musk, who founded SpaceXAI; and Demis Hassabis, the chair of Google DeepMind agreed on the need for a slower pace.

Last month, Mr. Gates warned that A.I. would spread across the economy, possibly causing job losses across the economy and leaving little room for one industry to absorb the refugees from another. The biggest tech companies in the world, including Microsoft, are racing to help corporate customers adopt A.I., and have said it could replace many workers.

On Monday, Mr. Gates urged the governments and companies developing the technology to focus on how A.I. could help people who have most to gain from the technology, rather than the most profitable users.

“We can harness A.I. for good,” Mr. Gates wrote. “But it won’t happen by accident.”

Comment by Riaz Haq on Thursday

Pakistan’s Artificial Intelligence Warfare – The Diplomat

https://thediplomat.com/2026/10/pakistans-artificial-intelligence-w...

Last year, Pakistan unveiled its National Artificial Intelligence Policy 2025 to regulate AI usage. Pakistan’s military forces have already deployed AI to enhance their capabilities through research units, such as the Army Center of Emerging Technologies and the Pakistan Air Force-run Center for Artificial Intelligence and Computing (CENTAIC). 

Pakistan has also unveiled a gamut of AI-enabled military weapons, including equipment manufactured by the state-owned Global Industrial & Defense Solutions (GIDS). These include unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs), such as Shahpar-II,and the Spider Anti-UAV system. Pakistan and India used numerous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the 2025 clashes, with Islamabad deploying YIHA-III drones manufactured by the Turkish defense contractor Baykar in addition to Shahpar-II. 

 

————-

 

Military sources reveal that Pakistan is also close to deploying robots. “Law enforcement authorities already have robots in bomb disposal units. Robots are also performing reconnaissance tasks, including in border areas. Now we are working on using robots to lead clearance operations, along with transporting ammunition and supplies in military operations in [Khyber] Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan,” said a senior officer.

The security agencies have already run drills with Chinese robotic wolves. There are plans to produce similar machines indigenously, as well as humanoid and bipedal robots.

“To keep pace with India, and to nullify terrorist groups, we are always integrating new technologies in military and law enforcement agencies. However, the biggest challenge is developing our capacity due to the lack of resources and the economic challenges,” Lieutenant General Talat Masood, a former secretary of Pakistan’s Ministry of Defense Production, told The Diplomat. In this regard, Pakistan continues to benefit from Chinese architectural support for CENTAIC. Beijing is also helping Islamabad use facial recognition technology, as Pakistani security agencies gradually expand its deployment to sensitive areas, including border checkpoints and terror hotspots.

Along with fortifying security capacities, however, the Pakistani state is also using these AI-powered technologies to maintain the military establishment’s stranglehold and quell any regional or political dissent. The Diplomat has learned that the military’s media wing, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), is allocating resources for “narrative building.” In addition to producing various forms of media, the ISPR also employs tech professionals to engage in countering what the establishment deems to be “anti-state propaganda,” a misnomer for critiques of the armed forces, the country’s military leadership, and their policies. 

————

“A good chunk of money is going into algorithmic filtering and monitoring, and tools are being used to erase social media anonymity and target individuals accordingly. Many professionals in the IT sector and the media industry are working on these projects,” revealed a senior digital media professional working at one of Pakistan’s largest media houses. 

Comment by Riaz Haq yesterday

Pakistan’s Blueprint for Transformation


https://www.undp.org/pakistan/DAP-Vol-12-1-Thought-Piece-11


Pakistan's young population is a demographic advantage that can be maximized by investing in AI literacy and skill development.


Artificial Intelligence (AI) stands as a transformative force with the potential to reshape societies, economies and individual lives. Pakistan with its burgeoning Information Technlogy (IT) sector, sizable population, and growing digital connectivity, has a unique opportunity to harness the potential of AI to drive substantial benefits across all sectors. However, realizing these benefits requires a comprehensive and forward-thinking policy approach that addresses infrastructure, human capital and widespread AI adoption.
The Promise and the Challenge

The AI promise lies in its capacity to augment human capabilities, solve complex challenges and drive innovation. From healthcare to education, AI can revolutionize sectors, improve public services and enhance people’s quality of life. Take AlphaFold, Google DeepMind’s AI system that uncovered the 3D structure of 200 million proteins–the building blocks of life. That single initiative has accelerated research in nearly every field of biology, speeding up progress for real-world problems including finding new drugs to treat liver cancer, developing fully effective malaria vaccines and breaking down single-use plastics.

Pakistan has also made significant strides in revolutionizing the healthcare sector with the introduction of AI technology. The National Center of Artificial Intelligence has used AI to make several breakthroughs that include designing cancer diagnostic tools and early detection of brain tumor, tuberculosis and breast cancer.

However, unlocking the full potential of AI also requires addressing challenges such as public trust, the risks of potential job losses and the need for a more robust infrastructure. Therefore, a proactive approach is essential to mitigate risks, ensure ethical AI use and foster an environment conducive to innovation.



Invest in AI Infrastructure and Innovation

A cornerstone of Pakistan's AI strategy should be substantial investment in research and development, digital infrastructure and computing capabilities. Building a strong AI ecosystem requires collaboration among the government, industry and academia. While the development of AI systems is costly, its deployment is not. Cross-border data flows across dependable internet infrastructure can ensure that Pakistani businesses of all sizes, as well as individual users can benefit from this technology.

Comment by Riaz Haq yesterday

Pakistan’s Blueprint for Transformation

https://www.undp.org/pakistan/DAP-Vol-12-1-Thought-Piece-11

Fostering a pro-innovation legal framework is crucial. Strategies can include intellectual property policies that encourage AI development while safeguarding data privacy and security. Aligning regulatory approaches with international standards is also key; these best practices will attract investment and facilitate collaboration with global AI leaders.

Build an AI Empowered Workforce

Pakistan's young and growing population is a demographic advantage that can be strengthened by investing in human capital. Therefore, developing education and skilling programs to incorporate AI literacy and skills is essential. Initiatives such as the DigiSkills.pk are a step in the right direction. However, additional programs are needed to equip the workforce with the skills required to thrive in an AI-driven economy.

Collaboration between industry and academia is vital to ensure that educational programs align with industry needs. Additionally, supporting workers in transition through reskilling and upskilling initiatives will help mitigate potential job displacement and ensure a smooth transition to AI-integrated workplaces.



Promote Widespread Adoption and Universal Accessibility

Government efforts to adopt AI can play a crucial role in demonstrating its benefits and building public trust. Implementing AI solutions in public services such as healthcare, education and transportation can improve efficiency and service delivery. Encouraging small businesses and traditional industries to adopt AI through targeted incentives and support programs can enhance their competitiveness and drive economic growth.

The Government of Pakistan’s draft National AI Policy is a positive step. However, its successful implementation requires collaboration and coordination among the different stakeholders. A clear roadmap with measurable targets and timelines is essential to track progress and ensure accountability.

Towards an AI-Enabled Future

Realizing the potential of AI in Pakistan requires a multi-faceted approach that addresses infrastructure, human capital and regulatory frameworks. Pakistan can position itself as a leader in the AI-driven global economy by investing in AI research, fostering a skilled workforce and promoting widespread AI adoption.

The government must champion this transformative agenda in collaboration with industry and academia. By embracing approaches that ensure AI is implemented responsibly and strategically, Pakistan can create a future where AI serves as a catalyst for economic growth, social progress and human development.

Comment

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• …
• 3
• 4
• 5
• Next ›
• Page