Pakistan president urges investment in emerging tech like blockchain

The Pakistan President Dr. Arif Alvi believes that emerging technology like blockchain and artificial intelligence (AI) will unleash the next wave of disruption. He thus urged his country to invest in these technologies or risk falling behind as the world moves into the new era of digital disruption.

Alvi stated that the dynamically evolving ICT technologies were leading the digital transformation and had “crossed sectoral significance in terms of fourth industrial revolution.” He said this while chairing meeting of the Taskforce on Emerging Technologies, attended by the country’s Minister for Information Technology and several IT experts.

Pakistan has embraced blockchain, led by the government which earlier this year called for the digitization of its processes using blockchain and other technologies. As CoinGeek reported, the Pakistani government looked at blockchain for increased efficiency and transparency so as to improve its general service delivery.

According to a report by the Associated Press of Pakistan, the President now believes that the country’s industrial sectors must prepare for the upcoming digital disruption. Adopting blockchain, AI, robotics and the Internet of Things (IoT) could position the South Asian country for prosperity in the digital age.

Digital transformation has many tenets, and one of the crucial ones is investing in the development of “important key digital enablers like digital identity, shared data services, shared business processes, technology centres, etc. and provide incentives for their use across the public sector,” he remarked.

The Pakistani government is already pushing the digital agenda through investing in several startups in emerging technologies.

The next decade will be one of “ICT revolution based on a futuristic telecom infrastructure, for which Pakistan must have necessary ingredients i.e. the infrastructure, a great number of educated youth in IT & Telecom and a population willing to adapt to new technologies,” the President stated.

Pakistan, which is the world’s sixth-most populous nation, has advocated for the use of blockchain in recent times. The country even intends on issuing a state-backed digital currency by 2025. According to the State Bank of Pakistan’s Deputy Governor, the move seeks to bring financial inclusion into the country. The digital currency would also help the country fight the deep-rooted corruption from its systems, while also reducing inefficiencies in the country’s monetary system.