ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is capable of producing its own artificial intelligence unicorn, according to the co-founder and CEO of Symmetry Group, whose company has launched a new AI venture, Aurion.AI.
Speaking on Pakistan TV Digital’s South Speaks with Saqib, Sarocsh Ahmed cited a Pakistani fintech company that he said has already reached a billion-dollar valuation as evidence that it can happen again.
Asked whether Pakistan could produce an AI unicorn, Ahmed said, "Why not?" pointing to an AI-powered fintech company his firm has worked with, saying it is already “valued at a billion dollars.”
He said Pakistan should not seek to compete in building AI models or infrastructure, but should instead focus on the application layer, where the country already has export experience.
"It is not the time to work on the LLM models, but to use those models to develop applications," he said, arguing the resources needed for the energy, chip, compute and infrastructure layers beneath applications are out of reach.
Ahmed said Pakistan's large population gives it a data advantage for building AI products at scale, and called the government's promised $1 billion investment in AI and cloud data centers a necessary step for regulated sectors like banking that cannot host data outside the country.
Pakistan, a country of 240 million people, seeks to become a key participant in the global AI economy, amid growing interest from governments in the Global South to harness AI for productivity, skills development and innovation.
Earlier, Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announced that Pakistan would invest $1 billion in artificial intelligence (AI) by 2030, in a major step to modernize the South Asian nation’s digital economy.
On fears of a global AI bubble, Ahmed said the technology is here to stay despite an inevitable wave of regulation.
"I don't believe that AI will go away, and it is here to stay. It will stay, but it will be regulated, and it will be used for the betterment of the people," he said, citing healthcare and defense as promising use cases.
He said that Pakistan's roughly $4 billion in IT exports gives it a base to pivot from conventional digital services into AI-powered products, a far larger global market.
The growing focus on artificial intelligence presents Pakistan with opportunities to strengthen its technology sector, develop new digital products and services, and expand its presence in the rapidly evolving global AI economy.