Senior leadership from Data Vault Pakistan, the country’s first sovereign AI data center, met in Lahore with H.E. Ali Mustafa Dar, the newly appointed Advisor to the Punjab Chief Minister on Artificial Intelligence and Special Initiatives, to present collaboration proposals aimed at accelerating the province’s AI transformation with the office of AI Punjab.
The Data Vault delegation included Syed Zeeshan Ali, Co‑Founder and Chief Operating Officer, Muddasir Saleem Malik, Board Advisor, and Ahmed Hamdhan, Chief Innovation Officer. The team laid out technical and operational plans designed to support Punjab’s push toward advanced local AI capabilities.
Syed Zeeshan Ali presented a partnership proposal focused on developing sovereign AI infrastructure that aligns with the provincial government’s ambition to position Punjab as a leading AI-enabled hub in South Asia. The proposal emphasized local data residency, secure compute platforms, and scalable GPU resources to support public and private sector use cases.
H.E. Ali Mustafa Dar, appointed this month to a ministerial-level advisory role on a pro bono basis, has been entrusted with driving innovation-led policy and technology adoption across Pakistan’s most populous province. Dar, who holds software engineering degrees from University College London and UMIST, has publicly stated his goal of making Punjab the most AI-enabled province in South Asia. His brief includes coordination with the office of AI Punjab to implement AI-based initiatives across departments.
For Punjab, home to more than 120 million people, sovereign AI infrastructure is expected to accelerate digitization across governance, healthcare, education, agriculture and public safety. Local compute and cloud capacity would enable faster deployment of AI services while keeping sensitive national data within Pakistan’s borders.
Data Vault Pakistan, founded and led by CEO Mehwish Salman Ali, operates an AI-ready data center in Karachi equipped with NVIDIA enterprise-grade GPUs and offers GPU-as-a-Service alongside sovereign cloud capabilities for enterprises, government institutions and startups. The company highlighted how in-region infrastructure can reduce latency, strengthen data security and attract investment into the local AI ecosystem.
Recent strategic collaborations were cited as building blocks for the proposed partnership. A joint effort with Telenor Pakistan launched the country’s first locally hosted AI cloud to ensure sensitive data remains in Pakistan. A strategic tie-up with U.S.-based Rafay Systems is positioned to enable Pakistan’s first Sovereign AI Cloud, and an agreement with U.S. data center operator Datarocx is expected to unlock substantial AI infrastructure investment.
Representatives from Data Vault and the office of AI Punjab signaled intent to continue discussions on implementation timelines, governance arrangements and capacity building, with both sides noting the potential for the partnership to accelerate Pakistan’s sovereign AI capabilities and attract further regional investment.
