OpenAI ChatGPT: Generative AI Buzz in Pakistan

[Riaz Haq]

A Singapore-based cybersecurity firm Group-IB discovered in June that over 100,000 ChatGPT user accounts were compromised and their credentials found on the Dark Web. Among the accounts reported compromised, India topped with 12,632, followed by Pakistan with 9,217 and Brazil with 6,531. Bangladesh witnessed the fewest instances with 2,463. This report gave a glimpse of the high interest level of Indians and Pakistanis in generative AI.  Another report attributed to Similarweb, which tracks popularity of websites by number of visitors, ranked ChatGPT in Pakistan at number 7, ahead of Instagram, Twitter and TikTok. Globally ChatGPT website is ranked 17th. Prior to this, there was a series of news reports about the launch of Presidential Initiative for Artificial Intelligence and Computing (PIAIC) by President Arif Alvi, and then came the government's policy to train one million AI experts in the country by 2027. Pakistanis published 2,600 AI-related research papers from 2016 to 2020, according to Statista. 

Top 10 Countries by Number of ChatGPT Accounts Compromised. Source:...

Back in 2017, then Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi inaugurated a National Centre for Artificial Intelligence (NCAI) at the National University of Sciences & Technology (NUST) in Islamabad. It was followed by a Rs 1.1 billion budgetary allocation for select universities with AI research to be coordinated by NCAI. In 2020, Pakistan Air Force (PAF) set up a Center of Artificial Intelligence and Computing (CENTAIC). 

While OpenAI is the first to offer a Generative AI model trained on vast amounts of data, Google has also joined the generative AI race with its own offering. Google BARD appears to have capabilities similar to OpenAI's ChatGPT. Very little is known about the specific datasets used for training either of them, raising some trust issues about the results produced by them. 

Training/Using Generative AI Foundation Models. Source: Analytics V...

Top global cloud operators Amazon, Google and Microsoft are now offering generative AI services to their clients for an additional fee. Cloud apps developers in Pakistan and elsewhere can train these base  models on their custom datasets to develop AI applications for agriculture, business, education, finance, healthcare, law etc. The AI market in Pakistan is currently estimated at $123 million by Statista Market Insights. 

Amazon Web Services (AWS) recently featured four Pakistani startups at the forefront of AI/ML: SalesFlo, Ozoned Digital, XpertFlow and Trukkr.  SalesFlo offers sales software for FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) companies.  Ozoned Digital caters to the technology needs of the insurance industry.  XpertFlow is an AI-powered preventative healthcare company.  Trukkr provides financial services and technology for logistics.  These and other startups are well positioned to take advantage of the new generative AI services being offered by cloud vendors. 

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[Riaz Haq]

Pakistan Ranks 4th in the World in Chat GPT Awareness Index 2024

An AI Opportunity Agenda for Pakistan

https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/publicpolicy.google/en//...

If we want to fully harness AI’s transformative potential, we must focus our attention on what we want to achieve, not just what we want to avoid.
In this respect, Pakistan’s 2023 draft National AI Policy (Draft AI Policy) is commendable. It clearly demonstrates the Pakistan government’s appreciation of how AI can help the country sustain its national competitiveness and improve the lives of its citizens by outlining a wide range of developmental initiatives necessary for awareness and adoption of AI, reimagining the transparent and fair use of personal data using AI, and stimulating innovation through industry-academia collaborations and investments in AI-led initiatives.
AI awareness is rising among Pakistan’s general public. The country ranks fourth with 76% of people being aware of ChatGPT, according to Stanford University’s AI Index Report 2024.
Pakistan has also seen several private-sector led initiatives to create even more awareness of AI. For instance, Karachi.AI is recognized as a premier community for Applied AI practitioners. Established in 2017, the community proudly hosts over 10,000 members representing various domains. Its mission revolves around three central pillars: raising awareness, promoting engagement, and driving execution. Karachi. AI hosts regular meetups in Karachi, which are also live streamed on its YouTube channel, along with other educational content about AI.

[Riaz Haq]

Global Times
@globaltimesnews
AI is rapidly transforming various industries in China, creating numerous job opportunities, including in the field of data labeling. Recently, Global Times reporters visited the Ningxia Artificial Intelligence Industrial Park in Wuzhong, the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region in Northwest China, to explore how AI, as a new driving force in productivity, is generating not only new employment opportunities but also new challenges and trends. At a local data labeling base, young annotators can be seen busily identifying specific words in text or speech, outlining objects in images or videos, and tagging them on their computers.

https://x.com/globaltimesnews/status/1869594668180369511

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Inside the Ningxia Data Labeling Industrial Base in NW China

https://www.globaltimes.cn/galleries/5598.html

Editor's Note:
AI is rapidly transforming various industries in China, creating numerous job opportunities, including in the field of data labeling. Recently, Global Times reporters visited the Ningxia Artificial Intelligence Industrial Park in Wuzhong, the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region in Northwest China, to explore how AI, as a new driving force in productivity, is generating not only new employment opportunities but also new challenges and trends. At a local data labeling base, young annotators can be seen busily identifying specific words in text or speech, outlining objects in images or videos, and tagging them on their computers. (Photos: Chen Tao/GT)

[Riaz Haq]

How China’s new AI model DeepSeek is threatening U.S. dominance


https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/24/how-chinas-new-ai-model-deepseek-is...

A little-known AI lab out of China has ignited panic throughout Silicon Valley after releasing AI models that can outperform America's best despite being built more cheaply and with less-powerful chips.

DeepSeek, as the lab is called, unveiled a free, open-source large-language model in late December that it says took only two months and less than $6 million to build, using reduced-capability chips from Nvidia called H800s.

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China’s cheap, open AI model DeepSeek thrills scientists


https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00229-6


A Chinese-built large language model called DeepSeek-R1 is thrilling scientists as an affordable and open rival to ‘reasoning’ models such as OpenAI’s o1.

These models generate responses step-by-step, in a process analogous to human reasoning. This makes them more adept than earlier language models at solving scientific problems and could make them useful in research. Initial tests of R1, released on 20 January, show that its performance on certain tasks in chemistry, mathematics and coding is on par with that of o1 — which wowed researchers when it was released by OpenAI in September.

“This is wild and totally unexpected,” Elvis Saravia, an AI researcher and co-founder of the UK-based AI consulting firm DAIR.AI, wrote on X.

R1 stands out for another reason. DeepSeek, the start-up in Hangzhou that built the model, has released it as ‘open-weight’, meaning that researchers can study and build on the algorithm. Published under an MIT licence, the model can be freely reused but is not considered fully open source, because its training data has not been made available.

“The openness of DeepSeek is quite remarkable,” says Mario Krenn, leader of the Artificial Scientist Lab at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light in Erlangen, Germany. By comparison, o1 and other models built by OpenAI in San Francisco, California, including its latest effort o3 are “essentially black boxes”, he says.

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China’s AI industry has almost caught up with America’s And it is more open and more efficient, too

https://www.economist.com/briefing/2025/01/23/chinas-ai-industry-ha...

The WORLD’s first “reasoning model”, an advanced form of artificial intelligence, was released in September by OpenAI, an American firm. o1, as it is called, uses a “chain of thought” to answer difficult questions in science and mathematics, breaking down problems to their constituent steps and testing various approaches to the task behind the scenes before presenting a conclusion to the user. Its unveiling set off a race to copy this method. Google came up with a reasoning model called “Gemini Flash Thinking” in December. OpenAI responded with o3, an update of o1, a few days later.

[Riaz Haq]

Pakistan Launches Its First Homegrown AI Chatbot Zehanat AI Tailored for Local Needs



https://propakistani.pk/2025/03/22/pakistan-launches-its-first-home...


Pakistan has achieved a notable milestone in the tech sector with the beta launch of Zahanat AI, the nation’s first locally developed artificial intelligence chatbot. Spearheaded by entrepreneur Mehwish Salman Ali, co-founder and CEO of Data Vault and Zahanat AI, the platform promises to address Pakistan’s unique challenges with culturally sensitive and locally relevant solutions.

Zahanat AI is the culmination of years of development, operating from a dedicated data center in Karachi since 2022. This means that the AI model’s data stays in Pakistan for processing and doesn’t go anywhere else. This data center is connected with high-speed internet and has robust DDoS protection.

The system utilizes a mixed GPU architecture, leveraging both Nvidia GPUs and chips, initially incorporating used gaming GPUs to build its computational power. It was a relatively low-cost development project. The owners said that DeepSeek cost $5 million to make, but Zahanat AI cost less, without specifying exactly how much.



Mehwish Salman Ali said:

Our goal was to create an AI that understands and responds to the specific needs of Pakistan. Zahanat AI is trained on a massive dataset of 2 billion parameters, all processed and stored within Pakistan, ensuring cultural awareness and relevance.

A key distinguishing feature of Zahanat AI is its focus on ethical and responsible AI development. The platform is specifically trained to censor sensitive topics and avoid discussions about particular individuals.

The beta launch of Zahanat AI is currently on an invitational basis, requiring interested users to submit their email and personal details, including their profession, work email, and social media accounts. This selective access aims to gather valuable feedback and refine the platform before a wider public release.

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Ali further explained:

By training Zahanat AI on Pakistan’s data, we are building a tool that can provide Pakistan-focused solutions to the diverse problems faced by our communities. We believe this technology has the potential to transform various sectors, from education and healthcare to business and governance.

For now, the beta launch has introduced Zahanat AI’s initial Z1 model, with plans to improve and expand further in the future with Z2 and so on. The Z2 model will introduce multilingual support for all languages in Pakistan and will get voice input as well.