LAHORE: Senior leadership from Data Vault Pakistan, the country’s first sovereign AI data center, held a high-level meeting with H.E. Ali Mustafa Dar, the newly appointed Advisor to Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz on Artificial Intelligence and Special Initiatives, to present collaboration proposals aimed at accelerating the province’s AI transformation agenda with the office of AI Punjab.
The Data Vault delegation, comprising Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer Syed Zeeshan Ali, Board Advisor Muddasir Saleem Malik, and Chief Innovation Officer Ahmed Hamdhan.
COO Data Vault Pakistan Syed Zeeshan Ali presented a proposal for a partnership to support the company’s sovereign AI infrastructure to achieve the provincial government’s ambitious plans to position Punjab as a leading AI-enabled hub in South Asia.
H.E. Dar, the son of Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar and son-in-law of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, was appointed to the newly created ministerial-level position earlier this month on a pro bono basis. His mandate includes driving innovation-led policy, promoting technology adoption, and implementing AI-based initiatives across Pakistan’s most populous province. Dar, who holds a software engineering degree from University College London and UMIST, has publicly stated his ambition to make Punjab the most AI-enabled province in South Asia.
For Punjab, home to over 120 million people, sovereign AI infrastructure could accelerate digitization across governance, healthcare, education, agriculture, and public safety.
Data Vault Pakistan, founded and led by CEO Mehwish Salman Ali, has rapidly positioned itself as a cornerstone of Pakistan’s sovereign AI ecosystem. Headquartered in Karachi, the company operates Pakistan’s first AI-ready data center equipped with NVIDIA enterprise-grade GPUs, offering GPU-as-a-Service and sovereign cloud capabilities to enterprises, government institutions, and startups.
The company has forged a series of high-profile partnerships in recent months. A landmark collaboration with Telenor Pakistan launched the country’s first locally hosted AI cloud, ensuring sensitive national data remains within Pakistan’s borders. A strategic partnership with U.S.-based Rafay Systems is enabling Pakistan’s first Sovereign AI Cloud, while a deal with U.S. data center operator Datarocx is expected to unlock hundreds of millions of dollars in AI infrastructure investment.
