Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming economies, industries, education, healthcare, and governance around the world. Countries such as China, India, the United States, and the United Arab Emirates are investing heavily in AI infrastructure, regulation, and innovation ecosystems to secure long-term economic advantages. Pakistan has also entered this race through its National AI Policy framework. While Pakistan’s AI policy reflects ambition and optimism, several shortcomings continue to limit its effectiveness and implementation.
Pakistan’s AI Policy:
On July 30, 2025, the federal cabinet unanimously approved the National Artificial Intelligence (AI) Policy 2025, aimed at creating an AI ecosystem in Pakistan. Pakistan’s AI Policy is said to envision responsible and ethical use of AI to address local challenges and ensure inclusive national growth and prosperity. This policy is considered a timely action to modernize Pakistan’s economy and enhance productivity across the country’s socio-economic spectrum.
Pakistan’s AI policy is, indeed, an important first step toward technological modernization, but its shortcomings cannot be ignored. Weak legal frameworks, inadequate infrastructure, poor implementation mechanisms, educational gaps, institutional fragmentation, and limited support for local innovation continue to hinder progress.
Key Shortcomings in Pakistan’s AI Policy:
- Lack of Legal Framework and Enforcement: One of the biggest weaknesses of Pakistan’s AI policy is the lack of strong legal and regulatory foundations. Experts have repeatedly highlighted that Pakistan still lacks comprehensive AI-specific legislation and enforceable data protection laws. Without legal safeguards, issues such as algorithmic bias, misuse of personal data, surveillance, and unethical AI deployment remain largely unregulated. The absence of a finalized and enforceable data privacy framework weakens public trust and discourages foreign investment in AI-driven industries.
- 2. Ambitious Goal: Another major concern is the policy’s overemphasis on vision while lacking clear execution mechanisms. Pakistan’s AI policy outlines ambitious goals such as training millions of professionals, establishing AI centers, and increasing AI adoption across industries. However, many analysts argue that the roadmap lacks practical implementation strategies, timelines, accountability systems, and measurable institutional responsibilities. Policies without enforceable structures often remain aspirational documents instead of becoming transformative national programs.
- 3. Infrastructure and Funding Gaps: Infrastructure limitations also pose a serious challenge. AI systems require reliable electricity, high-speed internet, advanced cloud computing, and data centers. Pakistan continues to struggle with energy shortages, slow digital infrastructure expansion, and inconsistent internet connectivity in many regions. Public discussions among Pakistani technology communities frequently point toward inadequate computing infrastructure and limited access to advanced hardware as barriers to meaningful AI development. Without significant investment in digital infrastructure, the policy’s AI ambitions may remain unrealistic.
- 4. Lack of Stakeholder Coordination: The policy requires better integration between academic, private sector, and government stakeholders. The policy also suffers from weak coordination between federal and provincial institutions. AI governance requires collaboration between ministries, universities, private companies, regulators, and provincial governments. However, Pakistan’s governance structure often faces bureaucratic fragmentation and overlapping institutional responsibilities. Researchers have warned that institutional fragmentation and poor inter-agency coordination could significantly delay implementation of AI initiatives.
- 5. Indigenous Expertise: Another overlooked issue is the lack of focus on local AI innovation and indigenous technologies. Pakistan is unlikely to develop its own frontier AI models anytime soon. The cost of a single training run now runs into hundreds of millions of dollars. Pakistan remains heavily dependent on foreign AI tools, cloud platforms, and digital services. Every time a Pakistani institution integrates a foreign AI system, it exports your information, such as financial records, health data or behavioral patterns into jurisdictions beyond its control. With no enforceable data protection laws, this isn’t integration. It’s extraction — a new form of colonialism where data is gold.
- Experts argue that the country needs stronger industrial policies supporting local AI startups, Urdu-language AI models, research labs, and domestic technology manufacturing. Without nurturing local innovation, Pakistan risks becoming merely a consumer of foreign AI technologies rather than a producer of globally competitive solutions.
- 6. Data Governance and Privacy: There are serious concerns about data misuse and a lack of stringent data governance, creating risks of surveillance and privacy violations. Cybersecurity and ethical governance also remain underdeveloped within the policy framework. As AI becomes integrated into healthcare, finance, policing, and public administration, risks related to cyberattacks, misinformation, automated discrimination, and digital manipulation increase significantly. Studies on AI governance in Pakistan emphasize that current frameworks lack effective mechanisms for transparency, accountability, and ethical auditing of AI systems.
- 7. Weak Ecosystem: Finally, Pakistan’s AI policy pays insufficient attention to inclusivity and the digital divide. A large segment of Pakistan’s population still lacks internet access, digital literacy, and access to modern technologies. If AI adoption remains concentrated in urban centers, it could widen social and economic inequalities between urban and rural populations. Then Pakistan faces a shortage of qualified AI professionals to meet the ambitious goal of training one million professionals by 2030, exacerbated by brain drain.
For Pakistan to truly benefit from AI, policymakers must move beyond ambitious promises and focus on practical reforms, transparent governance, investment in infrastructure, and long-term institutional commitment. Only then can AI become a driver of sustainable economic growth and national development in Pakistan.
By
Editorial, Infocus.pk
