Govt eyes AI-enabled digital ecosystem for trade

Dawn reported that the Ministry of Commerce has examined plans for a safe, joined-up digital framework for trade that relies on artificial intelligence. The goals include guarding information as it moves between bodies, creating domestic cloud capacity and quickening the shift to digital systems. Commerce Minister Jam Kamal Khan held two separate sessions, one with the Pakistan Digital Authority and one with Sky47 management, to go over the proposals.

At the Pakistan Digital Authority session, officials outlined a national framework covering data governance, data exchange, enterprise architecture and cloud use. Government data would be sorted into open, shared, restricted and personally identifiable categories, while ministries and public bodies keep ownership and control. A national digital master plan was also discussed, which could produce sector-level roadmaps drawn up with federal and provincial governments, public institutions and private firms.

The Sky47 meeting centred on data-centre capacity, sovereign cloud offerings, cybersecurity, disaster recovery and the computing needs created by AI. The company told the minister that modern facilities could cut costs and security risks linked to many small, scattered departmental sites, and outlined plans to widen secure hosting capacity inside Pakistan. Discussions also touched on energy-efficient cooling, data storage and the separate needs of conventional software, AI models and future quantum workloads.