The profundity of ‘everything is a computer’ era

For decades, we have treated the “digital world” like a separate room we chose to enter. We “went to the computer lab,” “logged onto the internet,” or “checked our phones.” There was a clear, comforting wall between the physical world — things you could kick, like a car or a tractor and the digital world — things you could only see, like an email or a video game.

That wall hasn’t just been breached; it has been demolished.

As Ryan McEntush of Andreessen Horowitz (a venture capital firm in Silicon Valley) recently posited in a landmark thesis, we are no longer living in a world with computers. We are living in a world where everything is a computer. In Pakistani context, from the drones buzzing over the agricultural heartlands of Punjab to the spinning looms of Faisalabad, the “physical” identity of our tools is becoming secondary to their “digital” soul.

For a nation like Pakistan, currently grappling with industrial stagnation and a desperate need for an economic “leapfrog,” this isn’t just a tech trend. It is a fundamental shift in the nature of reality and wealth.

Steve Jobs sold the iPhone as three devices, but he actually delivered a universal blueprint: the first mass-market fusion of compute, power, sensing, connectivity, and software. That recipe now defines our world. From smart TVs to industrial robots, the DNA is identical. Even an electric vehicle is essentially a smartphone on wheels - batteries, sensors, and code wrapped in sheet metal. We no longer inhabit distinct technological paradigms; we live in the era of the smartphone, endlessly reskinned and scaled.

The end of the “Dumb” machine

In the 20th century, if you wanted to build a better car, you hired a mechanical engineer to tweak the valves. If you wanted a better factory, you bought heavier steel. Today, that logic is dead.

Consider the modern automobile. To the untrained eye, it is an engine and four wheels. In reality, it is a high-performance computer wrapped in a steel chassis. It’s braking, its fuel efficiency, and its safety features are no longer determined by physical linkages, but by millions of lines of code. When Tesla or BYD wants to make a car faster or more efficient, they don’t call it back to the garage; they send a software update over the air.

This is the “Everything is a Computer” base theme in action. When a machine becomes software-defined, it gains the ability to evolve. It stops being a static object that depreciates until it breaks and becomes a dynamic system that can learn and improve.

Today’s most important technologies all share the same DNA: the smartphone. Whether it’s an electric car (a smartphone on wheels), a drone (a smartphone that flies), or a robot (a smartphone that moves), the core “recipe” is identical. This explains why tech giants—especially in China—are suddenly making everything at once. What looks like a random expansion is actually just smart recycling. If a company already builds millions of phones, they have already mastered the hard parts: batteries, sensors, chips, and wireless tech. For them, building an electric vehicle isn’t starting a new business—it’s just putting their existing technology into a bigger box.

The Pakistani context: From Sialkot to the Cloud

Why does this matter for the shopkeeper in Karachi or the exporter in Sialkot? Because the competitive advantage of the future will not belong to those who own the most machines, but to those who can programme them.

1. Agriculture as an Algorithm: Pakistan’s backbone is its soil. But the traditional “Kissan” model is hitting a ceiling. In the “Everything is a Computer” era, a tractor is a mobile data center. Sensors in the soil talk to satellites, which talk to the irrigation system, which talks to the drone. Agriculture becomes a computational problem: how do we maximize yield using the minimum amount of water and fertilizer? If our agricultural sector doesn’t realize it is operating a giant, outdoor computer, it will be left behind by those who do.

2. The software-defined factory: Our textile and surgical instrument industries are legendary. But in a world of ubiquitous compute, a lathe or a loom that isn’t connected to a feedback loop is a liability. Imagine a Sialkot factory where every surgical tool being forged is tracked by an AI “agent” that ensures sub-millimetre precision, adjusting the heat of the furnace in real-time based on the molecular composition of the steel. That is how you compete with global giants.

3. The energy grid is a processor: Pakistan’s chronic energy woes are often blamed on fuel costs. But a larger part of the problem is inefficiency. In a world where every transformer and meter is a computer, the grid becomes a “smart” processor. It can predict surges, reroute power from solar-heavy villages to industrial hubs, and eliminate the “leakage” that haunts our economy.

The rise of the “physical” AI

We have spent the last year obsessing over ChatGPT and “generative AI” that writes poems or makes images. While impressive, that is just the beginning. The real revolution is the one that will define the 2020s is physical AI.

When “Everything is a Computer,” AI gains hands and feet. It moves out of the chat box and into the warehouse. We are seeing the rise of AI agents that don’t just tell you how to fix a generator but actually are the operating system of that generator.

For Pakistan’s massive youth population, this is the ultimate opportunity. We are already one of the top countries for freelance software talent. But for too long, that talent has been “exported” to build apps for Silicon Valley. The “Everything is a Computer” era allows that talent to stay home and “reprogram” Pakistan. We don’t just need app developers; we need people who can code the physical infrastructure of our cities.

The great leapfrog: skipping the Industrial Age

There is a historical precedent for this. Pakistan largely skipped the “landline” phase of telecommunications and went straight to mobile. We didn’t wait for every house to be wired; we put a tower in every village.

The same can happen with industry. We don’t need to replicate the heavy, “dumb” industrialization of 1950s Europe. We can skip straight to Distributed, Software-Defined Manufacturing. We can build micro-factories driven by 3D printing and AI-managed supply chains. We can build a “computerized” nation from the ground up.

However, this requires a radical shift in our education and policy. If everything is a computer, then “Computer Science” cannot be a niche subject for “techies.” It must be the foundation of every degree. A mechanical engineer who can’t write Python is as obsolete as a writer who can’t use a pen. A doctor who doesn’t understand how their diagnostic AI works is just a technician.

The warning: programme or be programmed

There is a darker side to this thesis. If everything is a computer, then everything is hackable. Everything is subject to the “terms and conditions” of the person who wrote the software.

If Pakistan does not develop its own “computational sovereignty,” we risk becoming a nation of “end-users” in a world owned by others. If our tractors, our cars, and our power plants are all “computers” running on proprietary foreign code, we are only as sovereign as the next software update allows us to be.

Building our own “silicon soul” isn’t just about economics; it’s about national security.

Conclusion: a new language for a new era

The world is no longer made of just atoms; it is made of bits that command atoms. The hum of a busy Pakistani bazaar, the motorcycles, the sewing machines, the fans, the lights — is becoming a digital symphony.

We must stop looking at our problems as “mechanical” or “political” and start looking at them as “systemic” and “computational.” The inefficiencies in our bureaucracy? A software bug. The waste in our fields? A lack of data. The potential of our youth? The world’s greatest untapped processor.

Everything is a computer. It’s time Pakistan stopped just looking at the screen and started writing the code.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2026