Emerging tech: harnessing the promise and potential

The world is witnessing technology's most momentous intercession in human history reshaping and redesigning how mankind moves forward and determine its future. Emerging technologies and associated innovations, such as AI, blockchain, quantum computing, robotics, virtual reality, augmented reality, nanotechnology and many more, can have major and far-reaching social, economic, cultural and environmental implications and challenges for individual, communities, societies and governments.

Some of these may be intended and desirable while other unintended and undesirable. At the same time, the unfolding global political and economic order, characterised by uncertainty, structural power asymmetry, temerity to use bare-knuckled might and erosion of multilateralism, coupled with the enormity of climate crises has added to the multiplicity and complexity of human ordeals.

Drastic and transformative choices are vitally quintessential to respond to the rapidly brewing disruptions in the way the society arranges or organises itself and secure the survival and sustenance of humans and the planetary ecosystem. The range of new technologies, however, unfurl and expand hope and optimism to explore new pathways and horizons for harnessing greater human potential, productivity and creativity and successfully reshape the future destiny of mankind with the caveat that the focus in human-technology blend should be on value and capability creation where technology becomes human-centric, augments systemic resilience and ensures integrity of the planet's eco-system.

Several countries of the world achieved a massive economic transformation during the post-World War II period from extremely impoverished and poor economies to upper middle- and high-income wealthy nations. Notable among these countries in Asia are: China, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan. China's GDP in 1960 was $59.72 billion which in 2024 was $18.74 trillion, registering a massive growth by a factor of 300 plus. It has become the world's second largest economy with foreign exchange reserves of $3.338 trillion.

South Korea in 1960 was also a very poor country with GDP of $3.96 billion which spectacularly rose to $1.9 trillion in 2024. Similarly, Singapore's GDP per capita was less than $450 in 1960 which now is estimated at $90,674. The HDI ranking of these countries out of the 193 stood at 75, 19 and 9 respectively in 2024. One common feature of the development experience of these countries has been the focus on the knowledge based economic paradigm characterised by progressive advancement in scientific innovation, improvisation and development of technology, competitiveness and human capital formation. They are now among the leading innovative economies in the world and major drivers for digitalisation and deep science to sustain the economic uplift of their respective countries as well as contributing towards addressing the major development challenges of the planet.

According to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), Global Innovation Index (GII) which tracks the most recent global innovation trends, knowledge creation of the economies, etc, Korea, Singapore and China occupy 4th, 6th and 10th positions in the world.

Elsewhere in the globe, governments are also making bold and strategic investments to carve out their competitive space in the tech-AI-led future. Canada and France have announced AI infrastructure package of $2.4 billion and $117 billion respectively. India has pledged $1.25 billion for AI deployment, and Saudi Arabia's 'Project Transcendence' envisages $100 billion bet on AI for economic diversification. Meanwhile, the EU, with a massive $215 billion commitment, is enacting the first-ever legal framework i.e. through AI Act to establish global standards, categorise AI risks and introduce ethical guidelines for AI development and deployment.

Pakistan, which used to rightfully boast in 1960s as one of the emerging Asian tigers, has lamentably lost its competitive edge, primarily owing to the neglect of the S&T sector and adhocism by the successive governments sans individual-driven episodic and ephemeral efforts. The present state of affairs presents a very sad and sordid picture: it ranks at 164 in HDI with GDP of around $373.1 billion in 2024; number 99 out of 139 countries on Global Innovation Index 2025; and 109 out of 188 countries on AI Readiness – a drop from 92nd position in 2023.

However, market-propelled private sector resilience has yielded some promising dividends in creating a huge reservoir of IT-skilled corpus and expertise. Pakistan, as of 2024, has 88% tele-density with approximately 191 million cellular phones, 132 million 3/4 mobile broadband and 135 million broadband subscribers. The IT sector contributes about $3.5 billion to GDP besides empowering the people to access wide range of information and essential services.

The upstream policy frameworks like S&T Policies of 2021, Digital Policy 2028-2021, National Cybersecurity Policy 2021, Telemedicine policy of 1922 and recently approved National AI Policy of 2025 have also been enacted while the Presidential Initiative for Artificial Intelligence and Computing (PIAIC), aims to transition to a knowledge-based economy, harness AI for public services, healthcare, agriculture, education and research. The AI Policy outlines clear priorities e.g. inclusivity, establishment of a National AI Fund, allocating at least 30% of the R&D Fund to build AI research capacity etc.

Though these are promising steps, the implementation framework continues to remain conspicuously absent including financing and investment plans for digital infrastructure development, promotion of entrepreneurial spirit, inculcation of innovation culture and accessing domestic and international markets.

Major critical issues which besiege and beset the IT landscape need to be resolved upfront which include how to: develop and embrace a generation of new technologies that is more humane and intuitive, imbibes and respects human values and goals and ensures human centricity, resilience and environmental integrity; diffuse and deploy the context-specific standard and integrated models independent of technical platforms and organisational structure; and optimise the use of these technologies and solutions for application in all sectors such as e-governance, agriculture, health, education, transportation, economic, social, environment, security, etc.

Finally, good governance and consultative, inclusive and consensus-oriented process must be the sine qua non to galvanise national commitment for technology-led development across all spectrums and sectors.