Pakistan has taken a significant step in artificial intelligence with the beta launch of Zahanat AI, the country’s first locally developed AI chatbot. Founded by Mehwish Salman Ali, co-founder and CEO of Data Vault and Zahanat AI, this platform is designed to address Pakistan’s unique challenges while ensuring cultural relevance and ethical AI practices.

Unlike global AI models that rely on foreign data centers, Zahanat AI operates entirely from a dedicated data center in Karachi, established in 2022. This ensures that all processing and data storage remain within Pakistan, enhancing security and compliance with local needs. The infrastructure is equipped with high-speed internet connectivity and robust DDoS protection, providing a stable and secure environment for AI operations.

A Cost-Effective Approach to AI Development

One of the most intriguing aspects of Zahanat AI is its resourceful use of GPU technology. The system employs a mix of Nvidia GPUs and other hardware, initially leveraging used gaming GPUs to build computational power at a lower cost. While global AI models like DeepSeek required an investment of $5 million, Zahanat AI’s development was significantly more cost-efficient, though exact figures remain undisclosed.

“Our goal was to create an AI that truly understands Pakistan’s specific needs,” said Mehwish Salman Ali. “With 2 billion parameters trained entirely within Pakistan, Zahanat AI ensures cultural awareness and contextual accuracy in its responses.”

Ethical AI with a Local Focus

One of Zahanat AI’s defining features is its emphasis on responsible and ethical AI development. The model is designed to censor sensitive topics and avoid discussions about specific individuals, aligning with Pakistan’s socio-cultural landscape.

Currently, the beta version is available only through an invite system (chat.zahanat.ai) , requiring users to provide details such as their email, profession, work email, and social media accounts. This selective approach helps the development team gather valuable feedback before rolling out the platform to the general public.

Future Roadmap: Multilingual Support & Voice Input

Zahanat AI’s initial Z1 model is just the beginning. The team has ambitious plans for future iterations, with Z2 set to introduce multilingual support for all languages spoken in Pakistan. Additionally, upcoming versions will incorporate voice input, making the chatbot even more accessible to a wider audience.

With the rise of AI-driven solutions across the globe, Pakistan’s homegrown Zahanat AI represents a major leap in local AI innovation, potentially transforming sectors such as education, healthcare, business, and governance.

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GDG Live Pakistan hosted HERstory: Google IWD 2025, an online webinar that brought together industry leaders and government officials to discuss the digital empowerment of women in Pakistan. The event highlighted ongoing efforts to bridge the gender gap in technology and promote inclusive growth in the digital economy.

Google’s Vision for Women in Tech

In his keynote speech, Farhan Qureshi, Google Pakistan’s Country Director, reaffirmed Google’s commitment to enabling Pakistanis—especially women—on a global scale. “Google is working on initiatives to enable Pakistanis, especially women, on a global scale,” he stated. He outlined Google’s investments in digital literacy programs and collaborations with local partners to equip women with essential tech skills, ensuring they can thrive in an increasingly digital world.

Government’s Roadmap for Digital Inclusion

Federal Minister for IT & Telecommunication, Shaza Fatima Khawaja, underscored the government’s dedication to digital inclusion. She emphasized that artificial intelligence (AI) is not a threat to jobs but a tool to create an AI-enabled workforce across industries. “AI will not replace jobs; it will create AI-enabled people in all sectors,” she asserted.

Minister Khawaja detailed several key initiatives aimed at empowering women in tech, including:

• Digital Pakistan & ICT for Girls – Providing digital skills training for women.
• Smart Islamabad Project – Integrating smart technology for better accessibility.
• Digiskills Program – Offering free online courses to enhance digital literacy.
• Women-led Incubation Center – Supporting female entrepreneurs in tech and e-commerce.

She also highlighted that nearly 50% of Pakistani women now own a mobile device, showcasing a significant rise in digital adoption.

Industry Leaders Share Success Stories

The webinar featured inspiring contributions from successful women in tech, including:

• Tahreem Rasul – Senior Machine Learning Engineer.
• Kanwal Ahmed – YouTube creator and entrepreneur.
• Khadijah Shahzad – Creative freelancer.

Each speaker shared insights into their journey, emphasizing the importance of digital skills and mentorship in breaking barriers for women in the industry.

The Path Forward

The event concluded with a call for stronger collaboration between the public and private sectors to sustain and expand digital empowerment initiatives. The insights shared by Google and the government outlined a promising future where women play a central role in Pakistan’s digital economy, driving innovation and economic growth.

With continued investment in technology, education, and inclusive policies, Pakistan is making significant strides toward a more diverse and digitally empowered workforce.

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Google commits over $1 billion in fresh investment to AI startup Anthropic, strengthening its position against Microsoft-backed OpenAI. The move intensifies the AI arms race as tech giants pour billions into next-gen foundation models.

Google is set to invest over $1 billion into Anthropic, a leading competitor to OpenAI, the Financial Times reported. This fresh funding, separate from Anthropic’s recent $2 billion round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, highlights Google’s growing commitment to the AI race. With this, Google’s total investment in Anthropic reaches $3 billion, as Amazon also strengthens its position with an $8 billion stake in the company.

OpenAI Rival Anthropic, a major player in the AI foundation model sector, declined to comment on the latest funding. Google also did not provide a statement outside regular business hours. The company’s annualized revenue has reached $875 million, with its AI models offered via direct access and third-party cloud providers like Amazon Web Services.

The competition in AI development has intensified since Microsoft-backed OpenAI launched ChatGPT in November 2022, sparking an industry-wide “AI arms race.” OpenAI recently closed a $6.6 billion funding round, taking its valuation to a staggering $157 billion. Meanwhile, the development of large language models remains an expensive endeavor, requiring significant investments in computing power and AI talent.

Anthropic’s rise and the increasing investments from tech giants underscore the high-stakes battle for dominance in the future of artificial intelligence.

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August proved turbulent for some of the world’s biggest tech companies as escalating costs tied to artificial intelligence (AI) development and growing fears of an economic downturn led to sharp declines in market values. Industry giants like Alphabet, Amazon, and Tesla saw significant losses, raising concerns about the resilience of tech stocks in the face of mounting financial pressures.

Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL.O) experienced a 4.7% drop in market value, largely driven by a slowdown in YouTube’s advertising sales. Additionally, a U.S. judge ruled that Google had violated antitrust laws, and the emergence of competition from OpenAI, which is developing an AI-based search engine prototype, further contributed to the decline.

Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN.O) also faced a decline, with its market value falling by 4.5%, as the company grappled with slowing online sales.

Tesla (TSLA.O) saw its market capitalization drop by 7.7%, following weaker-than-expected Q2 earnings and news that Canada planned a new 100% tariff on Chinese-made electric vehicles. The automaker, which started shipping Shanghai-made EVs to Canada last year, faces concerns about potential profit impacts from its higher-cost U.S. production base.

Nvidia (NVDA.O), a dominant player in the AI chip market, experienced a 7.7% decline in market value in the last week of August. Despite commanding over 80% of the AI chip market, the company’s projected third-quarter gross margins fell below market estimates, and its revenues only met expectations, disappointing investors who had hoped for stronger performance.

On the other hand, some companies enjoyed positive market outcomes. Eli Lilly (LLY.N) saw its market value surge nearly 20%, leading market gainers, driven by robust sales and the successful launch of a weight-loss drug that significantly reduces the risk of developing type 2 diabetes in overweight adults.

Berkshire Hathaway (BRKa.N) closed the month with its market value surpassing $1 trillion for the first time, reflecting strong investor confidence in the conglomerate that Warren Buffett built over nearly six decades.

Meta (META.O) also enjoyed a market value increase of nearly 10%, after exceeding market expectations for its second-quarter revenues and forecasting strong revenue growth for the July-September quarter. This indicates that strong digital ad spending on its platforms could help offset the costs of its AI investments.

News Source: Reuters
Reporting by Patturaja Murugaboopathy and Gaurav Dogra in Bengaluru. Edited by Tomasz Janowski.

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Elon Musk, the tech billionaire behind the artificial intelligence start-up xAI, has introduced a groundbreaking AI model called ‘Grok.’ With this move, Musk aims to challenge industry giants like OpenAI, Google, and Meta by launching a sassy chatbot closely integrated with X, previously known as Twitter.

Grok, the fresh AI system, boasts “real-time access” to data from X, the social media platform that Musk acquired for $44 billion a year ago. According to Musk, this provides Grok with a “significant advantage over other models” that primarily rely on older internet data archives.

Musk emphasized Grok’s penchant for sarcasm and its ability to inject humor into conversations. By infusing more personality into the chatbot, Musk hopes to set Grok apart in an increasingly crowded market. Grok is also capable of handling edgier questions, making it a distinctive offering in the AI landscape.

xAI, the company behind Grok, has unveiled a “very early” testing version of the chatbot, which showcases the capabilities of so-called generative AI companies. These companies, which can create humanlike text, code, and imagery in mere seconds, have attracted substantial investments this year. Supporters believe this technology could be as transformative as the internet itself, but some caution against the formation of a new tech bubble, with commercialization still in its early stages.

xAI’s ability to introduce a capable model with just two months of training demonstrates how new players are starting to challenge the dominance of OpenAI, which released its groundbreaking chatbot, ChatGPT, almost a year ago.

Users of X can now apply to test Grok, available to subscribers of the app’s new “Premium+” service for around $16 per month, following an unspecified testing period.

Musk’s efforts to enhance engagement and revenue at X, which experienced revenue declines since his 2022 acquisition of Twitter due to advertiser concerns over relaxed content moderation, underline the significance of the Grok launch.

In a similar move, Meta announced the launch of nearly 30 AI chatbots across its Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp apps, including an AI assistant designed to answer user queries and others modeled after celebrities for entertainment purposes.

Musk, who recently stated that “AI will be able to do everything” and could potentially make human work obsolete, founded xAI earlier this year. His team of engineers, formerly associated with Google DeepMind and Microsoft, is racing to catch up with established rivals, including OpenAI, a company he co-founded in 2015 but later departed from in 2018.

Experts have expressed concerns about potential biases, the spread of harmful content, or false information through the chatbot, a phenomenon referred to as “hallucinations.” These issues have plagued other players in the AI space, even after their trust and safety teams worked on making their systems safer. Elon Musk’s approach to make the chatbot less politically correct, according to AI ethics adviser Reid Blackman, poses greater risks.

X has not provided an immediate response to these concerns.

Despite being developed in just a few months, Musk claims that Grok’s capabilities rival the latest models from Meta and Inflection, an AI start-up led by former DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman, as per benchmark tests.

xAI has stated that Grok’s ability to respond to mathematical queries and demonstrate reasoning is similar to OpenAI’s GPT-3.5, the model behind ChatGPT. The start-up also revealed that Grok achieved a grade C in a Hungarian high-school final math exam, matching Anthropic’s Claude model.

However, xAI acknowledges that it lags behind OpenAI, which released its latest GPT-4 model in March. GPT-4 has demonstrated “human-level performance” on professional benchmarks like the US bar exam and is already being integrated into applications by partner companies.

According to Nathan Benaich, an AI investor at Air Street Capital, Grok’s performance is impressive given its relatively small size and rapid development. Still, the substantial resources available to Musk’s company were taken into consideration.

Aaron Brindle at Radical Ventures, another AI investor, cautioned that building an AI system for business customers differed from creating a chatbot for consumers. Large enterprise customers prioritize safety, reliability, and performance.

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As part of an artificial intelligence clash with Microsoft, which has spent billions in the makers of ChatGPT, the massively successful language programme that successfully imitates human writing, Google announced on Monday that it will unveil a conversational chatbot named Bard.

The San Francisco company OpenAI’s ChatGPT has made a splash for its ability to compose essays, poems, or programming code on demand in a matter of seconds, igniting widespread concerns about cheating or the extinction of entire professions.

With hopes that it will adapt the programme to its Office suite and Bing search engine, Microsoft stated last month that it was supporting OpenAI and that it has started integrating ChatGPT features into its Teams platform.

The possibility of Google’s integration in Bing brought attention to the corporation and rumours that its globally renowned search engine would experience unprecedented competition from an AI-powered rival.

According to media sources, Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, who departed the company some years ago, were called back to brainstorm ideas and expedite a reaction after ChatGPT’s sudden popularity was deemed a “code red” threat.

The lacklustre profits reported last week by Alphabet, the company that owns Google, which fell short of market forecasts, increased the pressure to act. The corporation revealed last month that it was letting go of 12,000 employees as it focused more on AI projects.

The fact that Google made its announcement on the eve of Microsoft’s AI-related launch event is just another indication that the two tech titans will compete for control of the technology, also known as generative AI.

According to independent tech analyst Rob Enderle, “Generative AI is a game changer and just like the development of the internet sank the networking giants that came before (AOL, CompuServe, etc.), it has the potential to disrupt the competitive dynamic for search and information.

He continued, “Google still largely depends on the fact that their search engine is the most popular; this might change that, consigning them to history.”

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Google struggles to stay up with the competition for its widely used search engine as the threat from ChatGPT grows. The business spent almost $300 million in Anthropic, an AI startup developing its own Claude general-purpose chatbot that might compete with ChatGPT.

Although it’s unclear whether Claude will be integrated into its services, Google’s investment in late 2022, with a 10% ownership in the company, can be considered as a step towards competing with its rivals.

Financial Time reports that Google already has a lot of professionals working on AI language models, and the decision may have been made to expand Google’s cloud computing division.

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