PM Sharif invites Saudi investors to Pakistan, offers business facilitation during visit to Kingdom

ISLAMABAD: The founder of a Pakistani Internet media channel appeared in court on Friday on charges of “anti-state posts and fake news” under toughened legislation targeting online content.
Farhan Mallick, head of the Raftar channel, was remanded in custody for three days, his media outlet reported on social media platform X.
The charge sheet seen by AFP shows he was detained under a revised law targeting people “intentionally disseminating” information that is “fake or likely to spread fear.”
The revised legislation carries a prison term of up to three years and prompted journalist protests when it was approved in January.
“At this stage, no concrete evidence has been presented to substantiate the anti-state allegations against Mr.Mallick or Raftar,” read an online statement by the channel, which primarily publishes podcasts and analyzes of current affairs.
Several of Raftar’s videos have amassed more than a million views in recent years and examine the role of Pakistan’s powerful military, which analysts say is deeply involved in the country’s politics and economy.
Mallick was arrested by the Federal Investigation Agency, which deals with cybercrime, on Thursday.
The independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan subsequently called on authorities to “check the overreach of agencies... and uphold the right to freedom of expression.”
The criminalization of online disinformation has spread fear in Pakistan, with journalists among those worried about the potentially wide reach of the law.
“Amendments are being brought in specifically to quell dissent, to abduct, arrest, and detain journalists, and to silence journalism, silence dissent, and silence all criticism of the state,” human rights lawyer Imaan Mazari told AFP.
Pakistan is ranked 152 out of 180 countries in a press freedom index compiled by Reporters Without Borders.
Islamabad has long been criticized by watchdogs for restricting Internet access, including temporary bans on YouTube and TikTok, while X is officially blocked.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani tech firm Data Vault has launched the country’s first “home grown” generative pre-trained transformer (GPT) platform, ‘Zahanat AI,’ the company announced on Thursday, marking a significant development on Pakistan’s artificial intelligence (AI) landscape.
Zahanat AI is a text-based generative AI model that enables users to engage in human-like conversations, answer queries, and assist in various domains, according to Data Vault. The initiative aims to enhance Pakistan’s AI capabilities with locally trained models, which have been designed to fulfill regional needs.
“The problems and solution it will be providing will be according to our [Pakistani] culture and environment. So you can say it’s a local model,” Syed Muhammad Yahya, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Data Vault, told Arab News at the AI model’s launch at an event in Islamabad.

Generative AI refers to systems capable of creating content such as text, graphics, images, audio or video. Large Language Models (LLMs), like ChatGPT, DeepSeek and Meta-AI, are trained on large datasets to understand and generate human-like text.
Zahanat AI is a text-based generative AI model that enables users to engage in human-like conversations, answer queries and assist in various domains. The model supports English, Urdu and local languages, with plans to expand its linguistic range.
“It’s basically a general model which deals with health care, mathematics, coding, different problems, history [related queries],” the Data Vault CTO said.
The key differentiator is its hosting and local training on Pakistani culture and localized issues, which makes it equipped to address regional challenges.
“This is hosted inside Pakistan,” Yahya said. “The problems and solution it will be providing will be according to our [Pakistani] culture and environment. So you can say it’s a local model.”
Privately funded through friends and family, Zahanat AI is built on Meta’s Large Language Model Architecture (LLaMA), with 1.5 billion parameters and follows an open-source approach similar to DeepSeek.
“The development time, took around six to eight months, and we did a multi-GPU architecture [with] a stack of 12-15 GPUs,” the CTO explained.
The GPT platform is currently offering limited access only within Pakistan and Data Vault plans to soon launch its mobile application. The development comes as Pakistan moves to finalize its first AI policy, with plans to foster innovation through public-private partnerships.
“Our AI policy [is] very liberal. It actually promotes the local ecosystem [and] local entrepreneurs,” Dr. Aneel Salman, who is overseeing the upcoming National Artificial Intelligence Policy.
“In the short run, maybe after Eid or in one month’s time, we are going to have our first policy of AI.”
Dr. Salman underscored that foreign AI models posed “cybersecurity risks.”
“It’s not something new for the world to have these GPTs. We already have ChatGPT, we already have DeepSeek and other AI models which are working in terms of solving the queries,” he said.
“When I am uploading my information, it is going in their algorithms. So you don’t know how that document will later be deciphered.”
At the launch, the organizer demonstrated web application of Zahanat AI by responding to queries relating to health care and mathematics, however, the GPT model’s response to a query about freelancing trainer Hisham Sarwar, who was present at the launching event, initially lacked specific details and later contained inaccuracies.

Dr. Salman acknowledged these limitations.
“When ChatGPT came first, it also had its problems. When DeepSeek came, it also had problems during testing,” he said. “I’m not saying that Zahanat [AI] is going to be a perfect product. If there are problems in it, then your Z1, Z2, Z3 models will come.”
Despite the breakthrough, experts believe public adoption is crucial for the Pakistani GPT model.
“If we want to prevent them [Zahanat AI] from losing like we’ve seen with some previous initiatives, what we need to do is that we use more of their technology,” said Prof. Dr. Yasar Ayaz, chairman of the National Center of Artificial Intelligence (NCAI).
“Companies like Zahanat AI need to come in contact with innovators, for example, who are working in different R&D setups in Pakistan, to jointly develop groundbreaking stuff which can actually revolutionize the AI game in Pakistan.”