There is a particular kind of embarrassment that no press release can walk back. As India hosted its recent AI Impact Summit in New Delhi – billed as the first major AI gathering of the Global South – a professor from Galgotias University stood before a state-run broadcaster and introduced the world to ‘Orion’, a robot she declared had been developed at the university’s Centre of Excellence.
Within hours, the internet identified it as the Unitree Go2 – a commercially available robotic dog made in China, retailing at under $2,800, used routinely in labs and classrooms worldwide. The university was asked to vacate its stall. Power to their exhibit was reportedly cut mid-crisis.
This was not a minor slip at a minor occasion. This was India’s flagship AI summit, where Prime Minister Modi, Google’s Sundar Pichai, OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei shared the stage. The event was meant to signal that India, home to the IITs and a technology services industry worth hundreds of billions of dollars, is ready to lead on AI. Instead, it became defined by overcrowding, logistical chaos, stolen wearables from exhibition stalls, Bill Gates withdrawing hours before his keynote, and a university that could not distinguish between purchasing a robot and building one.
India has earned every right to stand tall on technology. But its AI week will be remembered less for its declarations than for its embarrassments.
The contrast with what unfolded in Islamabad a few weeks earlier is worth sitting with. Pakistan held its Indus AI Week from February 9 to 15, a five-day national platform organised by the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication. It was structured around three deliberate pillars: a policy summit at the Jinnah Convention Centre, an innovation arena at the Pakistan Sports Complex, and nationwide activities beyond the capital. Over a thousand participants attended, including 150 international delegates.
Pakistan’s first national AI techathon – Uraan AI Techathon 1.0 – drew 183 entries across healthcare, agriculture and fintech. A National AI Training Bootcamp trained over 1,900 participants. The AI for HER initiative championed women-led ventures. The agenda was dense, purposeful and coordinated.
Leading this charge is Federal Minister for IT and Telecommunication Shaza Fatima Khawaja. At the summit, she formally unveiled the Islamabad AI Declaration on Sovereign, Responsible, and Capability-Driven Artificial Intelligence. This is Pakistan’s national position on AI, with nine foundational principles covering data sovereignty, explainability of government AI systems, private-sector-led innovation and a ‘use-case-first’ philosophy. It is not a press release masquerading as policy. It is a document that demonstrates strategic clarity that many countries with far larger technology budgets have failed to produce.
Then came the partnerships with real technical weight. On February 10, the Pakistan Digital Authority signed an MoU with the DFINITY Foundation, the Zurich-based non-profit behind the Internet Computer Platform. I was present at the signing and had the chance to meet Dominic Williams, DFINITY’s founder and chief scientist, along with his team. What struck me was not the formality of the occasion, but their genuine excitement. These were not people going through a market-entry strategy. They saw in Pakistan’s entrepreneurial population and its ambition for digital sovereignty a country ready to build, not just buy.
Under the MoU, DFINITY will support a dedicated Pakistan Subnet – a sovereign cloud for tamper-resistant, AI-powered applications independent of foreign infrastructure. Five hundred Caffeine AI licences go to Pakistani startups; 1000 to government institutions – 1,500 in total for entrepreneurs, students and public servants to build and deploy applications using natural language. DFINITY has also committed to a physical presence in Pakistan for long-term technical engagement.
"This partnership marks an important step in Pakistan’s digital evolution”, said Dr Sohail Munir, chairperson of the Pakistan Digital Authority, the institutional backbone behind PDA’s emergence as a credible national body. PM Shehbaz Sharif, meanwhile, announced a $1 billion commitment to AI by 2030, covering PhD scholarships, training one million non-IT professionals, and infrastructure investment. The software industry publicly backed the plan. Leading telcos stepped in as primary sponsors, a signal that Pakistan’s private sector is not waiting on the sidelines. Is Pakistan an AI superpower? No, and nobody serious is claiming that. Compute access is limited, datasets are scarce and infrastructure gaps are real. The Islamabad AI Declaration acknowledges these constraints directly rather than airbrushing them away. That honesty is itself a form of institutional maturity.
Standing at that MoU signing, watching Dominic Williams and Dr Sohail Munir shake hands while Shaza Fatima Khawaja’s ministry had already placed Pakistan on the global AI policy map, I found myself thinking about the nature of progress. India’s summit had the bigger stage, the brighter lights, the more famous names. It also had Orion – a Chinese robot playing the role of Indian innovation on national television.
Pakistan’s AI week had none of that glamour. What it had was direction. And in the long game of national transformation, direction is everything.
The writer is the CEO of Campaignistan and founder of the Islamabad Science Festival. He tweets/posts @farhadjarralpk and can be reached at:[email protected]
