Iftikhar Ali Malik, former president of the SAARC Chamber of Commerce and Industry, has called for urgent action on developing localised artificial intelligence models and deploying them across all sectors of Pakistan’s economy, arguing that the country’s global competitiveness in the coming decade will be substantially shaped by how quickly and effectively it makes the transition from technology consumer to technology developer.
Speaking in Lahore, Malik said Pakistan possesses several foundational advantages for this transition that are often underappreciated in domestic policy conversations. The country’s large population creates both a domestic market for AI applications and a source of the training data that contextually appropriate models require. Its young workforce represents a talent pipeline that, with the right skills investment, can be trained in artificial intelligence development and adaptation rather than just application. And the established information technology and IT-enabled services sector provides the institutional infrastructure, talent networks, and international client relationships needed to commercialise AI solutions in global markets. Taken together, these factors make Pakistan’s AI transition more achievable than the country’s current position as primarily a technology services provider might suggest.
Malik identified Chinese open-source artificial intelligence models as a particularly relevant pathway for Pakistan’s transition, arguing that they enable the country to build sophisticated localised AI capabilities without incurring the enormous costs of developing frontier AI systems from scratch. He specifically highlighted adaptation of existing AI models to local languages as an immediate practical opportunity, pointing to translation, document processing, education tools, and public information systems as areas where localised models could deliver value quickly and at scale. Pakistan’s linguistic diversity, with Urdu, regional languages, and multiple scripts, creates both a challenge and an opportunity for AI localisation that globally developed models consistently underserve, making locally adapted solutions genuinely competitive rather than merely cheaper alternatives.
The broader strategic argument Malik advanced is one that Pakistan’s technology policy community has been wrestling with as the country records record IT export revenues but remains concentrated in lower-value services. He said Pakistan’s strategy should focus on becoming a developer, adapter, and exporter of technology solutions rather than remaining primarily a technology importer, and that artificial intelligence offers specific opportunities to provide higher-value digital services to international markets, enabling Pakistani companies to compete through specialised solutions rather than relying mainly on cost advantages. He stressed the need for Pakistan to pursue cooperation with China on access to AI models and computing resources, technology and skills transfer, support for local developers, and the establishment of effective data protection rules that encourage innovation rather than stifling it, with data governance described as central to building a sustainable domestic AI ecosystem.
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