ISLAMABAD
Federal Minister for Information Technology and Telecommunication has said Pakistan believes the 21st century belongs to emerging nations that can use digital technology to create wealth and shape their own future.
Addressing the LEAP 2026 conference on “How We Built a Digital Nation”, she said Pakistan was building its national digital stack on open-source technology.
She said Pakistan would share the digital stack free of cost with frontier and emerging nations once it was completed. Digital technology should help countries move beyond modernisation towards wealth creation and greater economic independence, she added.
Ms Shaza said Pakistan had moved away from pursuing “fancy big projects” and was focusing instead on building strong digital foundations.
Over the past two years, she said, the government had introduced key legislation, including the Digital Nation Pakistan Act and the National AI Policy.
The measures aimed to support the technology ecosystem while ensuring ethical, security and sovereignty safeguards, she added.
She said right-of-way reforms had also been introduced to promote fibre connectivity and broadband adoption.
“In a nutshell, what we did was the grunt work for very strong, solid foundations for a digital era,” she said.
The minister said the government began its efforts by listening to the concerns of investors, industry, young people and international partners.
She identified digital connectivity as the first major challenge, saying digital development was impossible without reliable, high-speed internet across the country.
Spectrum availability had been a major bottleneck, she said, adding that Pakistan had conducted the world’s largest spectrum auction, offering 480 megahertz.
The rollout was now well underway, she said. Pakistan had also landed two new submarine cables, while fibre reforms had been introduced and house passes had increased by almost 100 per cent.
