ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Ahsan Iqbal has said that Pakistan’s future economy must be driven by knowledge, technology, innovation and exports, stressing that the country’s youth must develop the ability to transform their knowledge and education into modern technological solutions and take Pakistani products to global markets.
He was addressing the concluding ceremony of the Digital Design and Verification Training Programme 2026 at the Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology (GIKI) on Friday.
Forty male and female students completed four months of training in the first phase of the programme.
Ahsan Iqbal said the young graduates were not merely receiving certificates today, but were laying the foundation for Pakistan to move forward in a new and strategically important field of technology.
He said a tiny silicon chip was now playing a fundamental role in driving the global economy, whether in laptops, automobiles or advanced machinery, highlighting the importance of semiconductor technology across virtually every sector.
The Federal Minister said that semiconductor and chip-design capabilities were becoming the foundation of the modern economy, while skilled human resources and design capabilities were essential for developing any emerging technological sector.
He expressed the hope that Pakistani youth would, in the future, succeed in building globally competitive unicorn companies.
He said artificial intelligence was transforming the way people worked, learned, received healthcare, conducted industry and approached defence, while quantum computing was challenging the limits of conventional computing.
Robotics, cyber security, biotechnology and space technology were increasingly converging, he added, but at the heart of all these technologies was the chip.
“The brain of artificial intelligence is a chip, the nervous system of a modern vehicle is a chip, and satellites are guided by chips,” he said.
The Federal Minister said that in the present era, acquiring education alone was not enough; young people must develop the ability to....
