PASHA sent two of its policy specialists to the Institute of Business Administration Karachi on September 23, where Kashoon Leeza, Director of Policy and Strategic Affairs, and Gulraiz Iqbal, Manager of Policy and Government Affairs, delivered a guest lecture at the School of Economics and Social Sciences on one of the most consequential questions shaping the global technology landscape: how artificial intelligence and cybersecurity are rewriting the rules of power, and what the stakes are for Global South countries like Pakistan.
Kashoon Leeza focused her session on the shifting politics of cybersecurity, walking students through how state and non-state actors are increasingly weaponizing digital vulnerabilities to pursue strategic objectives, and the escalating international risks this poses for countries that have not yet developed mature cyber-defense frameworks. The lecture carried a pointed message for the Pakistani audience: cybersecurity can no longer be treated as a technical problem confined to the information technology sector. It has become a national security issue that demands attention at the policy and strategic level, with the consequences of inaction measured not just in data breaches but in sovereignty, economic resilience, and geopolitical exposure.
Gulraiz Iqbal turned his session toward the politics of the artificial intelligence supply chain, examining the journey from chip fabrication to compute access and how the intensifying rivalry between the United States and China over these critical choke points is forcing countries across the world to make difficult alignment decisions. His lecture explored how access to compute, chips, and AI infrastructure has become a defining axis of geopolitical competition, with nations in the Global South increasingly caught between two competing technological ecosystems and forced to navigate these pressures without the leverage that larger economies command. For Pakistan, the implications extend beyond economics into questions of strategic positioning, digital sovereignty, and the country’s ability to develop its own artificial intelligence capabilities independently of the supply chain dependencies that major powers are actively seeking to control.
P@SHA framed the IBA engagement as precisely the kind of conversation it wants to keep having, connecting academia and industry on where global technology politics is headed and what Pakistan must do to not merely adapt to these shifts but to position itself strategically within them. The lecture reflects a broader effort by P@SHA’s policy team to bring the realities of global technology governance into Pakistani academic and policy discourse at a time when decisions about artificial intelligence infrastructure, semiconductor access, and cybersecurity architecture are being made at the international level in ways that will have long-term consequences for countries that are not actively engaged in shaping them.
Follow the SPIN IDG WhatsApp Channel for updates across the Smart Pakistan Insights Network covering all of Pakistan’s technology ecosystem.
