The Pakistan Digital Authority (PDA) is set to participate in an upcoming X Space titled “Internet Computer for Nations,” where representatives from Pakistan, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), DFINITY Foundation and OpenChat will discuss developments in sovereign digital infrastructure and artificial intelligence. The session is scheduled for Sunday, September 20, at 4:00 PM Pakistan Standard Time and will feature Dr. Sohail Munir, Chairperson of the Pakistan Digital Authority, alongside Ali Theyab Al-Zuhairi, Digital Economies Lead at UNDP, Pierre Samaties, Chief Business Officer at DFINITY Foundation, and Matt Grogan, Co-founder of OpenChat. The discussion will focus significantly on Pakistan’s progress in developing digital infrastructure that can support government applications and other national technology services.
A key focus of the session will be Pakistan’s Sovereign Cloud Engine, which is being developed through collaboration between the Pakistan Digital Authority and DFINITY Foundation using Internet Computer technology. According to DFINITY, Pakistan is operating a dedicated sovereign cloud environment designed to allow government applications to be built and deployed directly onto national infrastructure. Recent updates indicate that a major government application developed through Caffeine, DFINITY’s AI-powered application development platform, is already operating on the Pakistan Cloud Engine, while another public-sector application is being prepared for deployment. The initiative is intended to provide infrastructure for government systems while keeping greater control over data, applications and underlying digital services within the national environment.
The X Space will also provide an update on a pilot sovereign messaging application for Pakistan. The National Messenger project is being developed as part of the broader sovereign digital infrastructure initiative and has progressed toward a feature-complete stage, according to recent updates from DFINITY executives. The application is being developed on the Internet Computer infrastructure, with reported work covering mobile applications and communication capabilities. The project forms part of Pakistan’s wider efforts to explore locally controlled digital services that can operate on dedicated national infrastructure rather than depending entirely on conventional foreign cloud platforms.
Beyond Pakistan, the discussion will examine how sovereign digital technologies could be extended to other countries and institutions through collaboration between the UNDP and DFINITY Foundation. The participants are also expected to discuss the Internet Computer as an infrastructure layer for AI-enabled software, including what the organizers describe as “AIware” and increasingly autonomous digital systems. For Pakistan, the discussion comes as its digital infrastructure initiative moves from partnership and development stages toward operational applications. The September 20 session is therefore expected to provide further details about the country’s sovereign cloud deployment, the National Messenger pilot, AI-based application development and potential international cooperation around sovereign digital technology.
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