Shaza Fatima Khawaja, Federal Minister for IT and Telecom, met with Abdullah bin Sharaf Alghamdi, President of the Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority, in Riyadh on 2 October 2025 to discuss enhanced cooperation under the frameworks of Saudi Vision 2030 and Pakistan’s National AI Policy 2025. The two sides examined how Pakistan can benefit from Saudi capacity building initiatives, including the Saudi model known as One Million Saudis in AI, to accelerate Pakistan’s target of training one million AI professionals.
Discussions centered on practical steps to advance AI collaboration, with both delegations emphasising technical cooperation in high performance computing and the establishment of a national data repository. Officials agreed that joint technical support and knowledge transfer will be important to strengthen Pakistan’s data infrastructure and research capabilities while aligning efforts with national policy objectives.
Both parties proposed joint workshops to develop AI regulations, governance frameworks and a privacy sandbox tailored to regional needs. The meeting also outlined a proposal for shared R&D funds to explore projects in agriculture, education, health and smart cities, signalling interest in coordinated investment and pilot programmes that draw on expertise from both countries.
The delegation highlighted collaboration on local large language models in Urdu and Arabic to foster inclusive AI solutions for both populations. Exchanges will also cover experiences in data economy frameworks, data sharing practices and national data bank models to support interoperable systems. Next steps include organising targeted workshops and technical exchanges to translate the agreed priorities into concrete capacity building, regulatory design and joint research initiatives under the umbrella of sustained Pakistan-Saudi AI collaboration.
