Pakistan Digital Authority (PDA) Chairperson Dr. Sohail Munir has met Dominic Williams, Founder, President, and Chief Scientist of the DFINITY Foundation, and Chief Business Officer Pierre Samaties to discuss establishing an artificial intelligence (AI) Factory in Pakistan, according to a post by PDA on LinkedIn. The strategic discussions focused on developing production-grade software for the public sector, deployed on the PDA Cloud Engine. PDA said the meeting involved detailed deliberations on a sovereign AI Factory focused on GovTech, government applications, and public-sector innovation, with the aim of improving Pakistan’s digital infrastructure and AI capabilities.
The meeting was the second high-level engagement between PDA and DFINITY this year. It builds on an earlier meeting that led to a memorandum of understanding (MoU), which the two organisations signed on 10 February 2026. Under that agreement, DFINITY, a Swiss-based non-profit and the creator of the Internet Computer, agreed to support the creation of a dedicated Pakistan Subnet on its Internet Computer Platform. The subnet is a sovereign cloud intended to host secure government applications and AI-powered systems while keeping sensitive public data inside the country, according to Arab News. The MoU also covered local AI-native software development and a pilot of a national messenger app, according to the announcement that accompanied the signing.
The PDA Cloud Engine builds on a DFINITY technology called Cloud Engine. As Williams explained to Tech.eu in July, it allows an organisation to create its own Internet Computer subnet while deciding where it runs, who operates it, and what security trade-offs it accepts. He said it is essentially a protocol configuration, so the underlying infrastructure can change without interrupting the applications running on it. That flexibility is what makes the model attractive to governments that want control over where their data is stored. PDA, which was set up under the Digital Nation Pakistan Act 2025 to oversee digital policy, data and AI governance, and national digital infrastructure, has presented the approach as a way to reduce reliance on foreign cloud providers for public services.
PDA’s post also says the earlier collaboration laid the groundwork for an international milestone, with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) adopting Pakistan’s sovereign Cloud Engines model. That claim comes from PDA, and the post does not say what form the adoption takes or in which countries or programmes the model will be used. The post also does not say how the proposed AI Factory would be structured, what software it would produce first, which government bodies would use it, or what investment and timeline are involved. For now, the meeting shows the two sides moving from infrastructure towards building software for the government on that infrastructure, and the details of how that will happen have yet to be announced.
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