Mobile World Congress: AI rapidly redefining global power structures

ISLAMABAD: Artificial Intelligence is rapidly redefining global power structures, and for countries like Pakistan, the question is no longer whether to adopt AI but whether they can shape it on their own terms.

At Mobile World Congress (MWC), Doha, this theme took centre stage as Jazz CEO Aamir Ibrahim argued that Sovereign AI begins with language, and that developing nations must build AI systems rooted in their own linguistic and cultural realities.

Speaking during the high-level panel “Sovereign AI and the New Digital Power Map,” Aamir noted that global AI models, trained largely on Western datasets, cannot fully understand the nuance, intent, and diverse speech patterns of countries like Pakistan.

For a multilingual nation of 240 million people, he emphasised, local-language AI is not just a technological necessity — it is a matter of sovereignty.

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“Models need to understand our languages, our context, and our people,” he said, underscoring that true digital independence requires indigenous AI capabilities that reflect local identity and social fabric.

This debate comes at a time when Pakistan is accelerating its own AI journey. In late 2024, Jazz partnered with NUST and NITB to build the country’s first local-language LLM, trained specifically for Urdu, Punjabi, Pashto, and other low-resource languages. The initiative aims to bridge Pakistan’s “AI language gap,” enabling teachers, farmers, frontline health workers, and everyday citizens to access AI tools in the languages they speak an essential step toward inclusive national digital transformation.

But Aamir also warned that achieving AI sovereignty requires a far stronger digital foundation. As AI becomes embedded into daily life from agriculture and healthcare to fintech and public service delivery data consumption will grow exponentially. Pakistan’s data centres will need dramatically more power, cooling, and resilient infrastructure to support next-generation AI workloads. Without a clear national strategy for clean energy and climate-resilient infrastructure, he cautioned, Pakistan risks technological ambition outpacing capacity.

This concern is especially urgent as climate volatility intensifies. Despite contributing less than one percent of global emissions, Pakistan remains among the world’s most climate-vulnerable nations. The catastrophic 2025 floods displaced millions and caused losses exceeding Rs822 billion. For frontline nations like Pakistan, Aamir argued, digital resilience must be designed with climate resilience in mind from networks and energy systems to AI-ready data infrastructure.

He emphasized that platforms like MWC Doha offer critical opportunities for collaboration, policy alignment, and public-private planning ensuring that Pakistan’s digital future is built not just on global technologies, but on local intelligence, sustainable infrastructure, and sovereign capability.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2025