Pakistan presented its artificial intelligence roadmap at the Global AI and Digital Summit 2026 in Seoul, South Korea. Federal Minister for IT and Telecommunication Shaza Fatima Khawaja attended the ministerial sessions organized jointly by the Government of South Korea and the World Bank.

The policy document presented during the summit sets public targets for technical education, administrative digitization, and computing self-reliance. Government representatives used the platform to outline how Pakistan intends to coordinate multilateral financing with domestic technical programs over the next decade.

National AI Policy and Digital Master Plan Targets

Minister Khawaja briefed summit attendees on several state-level technological initiatives. She referenced the National AI Policy 2025 and confirmed that Pakistan and the World Bank are finalizing terms for the Digital and AI Compact 2026–2030. Additional background on that bilateral agreement is covered in this analysis on Pakistan to Become First Nation to Sign Global Digital and AI Compact.

Alongside the multilateral compact, the federal cabinet approved a National Digital Master Plan. This plan lists 12 priority sectors scheduled for public automation by 2035, including revenue collection, agriculture, public records, and healthcare delivery. Implementation across these departments requires standardized data exchanges between provincial databases and federal data centers.

Data Protection and E-Government Progress

The Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication linked its technological goals to public administration metrics. Pakistan gained 14 positions on the United Nations E-Government Development Index, an assessment that measures national telecommunications infrastructure, human capital resources, and online public services.

Sustaining that progress requires an enforceable legal framework. The ministry reported ongoing work on data protection regulations and personal privacy rules intended to secure citizen records. These statutes aim to set standards for how public bodies store, process, and transfer biometric and institutional information across domestic networks. The proposed rules also establish compliance requirements for foreign software vendors operating servers within the country.

Human Capital Targets and Research Scholarships

Training quotas represent a central part of the policy documents distributed at the summit. State planners set concrete numbers for workforce instruction to broaden the base of technical labor.

  • AI skills programs intended for one million non-IT personnel across public and commercial offices.
  • 1,000 fully funded PhD scholarships dedicated to computer science and advanced data analytics.
  • University computing laboratories funded through government development grants.
  • State subsidies for localized software development programs targeting municipal services.

The scholarship component directs funding toward academic institutions with existing research programs in machine learning. State allocations will fund candidate placements over multiple academic cycles through the Higher Education Commission.

Google Bilateral Meetings and Technical Infrastructure

On the sidelines of the summit, Minister Khawaja held talks with Google Vice President Wilson L. White. The discussions centered on expanding technical programs and corporate investments in Pakistan.

Both sides reviewed the status of existing joint projects between Google and the federal government. The meeting covered expansion plans for local developer workshops, school digitization pilots, and enterprise cloud distribution. Ministry delegates also asked for broader technical cooperation on regional network infrastructure to support lower data-latency rates for local software developers. Google currently maintains educational initiatives in the country, including coding curricula introduced in select public schools.

Strategic Objectives of the Sovereign AI Strategy

The sovereign AI concept presented in Seoul focuses on building domestic computational capacity. Most regional governments rely entirely on proprietary foundation models hosted in North American or European data centers. This dynamic leaves local industries exposed to foreign regulatory changes, subscription fee increases, and unexpected service interruptions.

Pakistan aims to lower that exposure by funding local computing clusters and specialized language models built on regional data. Training models on domestic Urdu and regional language datasets allows public agencies to deploy automated services that reflect local legal terminology and community needs. These systems require reliable energy infrastructure, access to graphics processing hardware, and sustained state budget lines through 2035.

Source: PhoneWorld