Presidential Initiative for Artificial Intelligence and Computing (Pakistan)

The Presidential Initiative for Artificial Intelligence and Computing (PIAIC) was launched by the President of Pakistan, Dr. Arif Alvi, to promote education, research and business opportunities in Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, Internet of Things, and Cloud Native Computing.^[1][2][3] The initiative comes in a bid to enable Pakistan in making an imprint on the world’s path towards the Fourth Industrial Revolution.^[4][5] It aims to transform the fields of education, research, and business in Pakistan. President Dr. Arif Alvi had launched PIAIC.^[6][7][8]

Presidential Initiative for Artificial Intelligence and Computing

Type	Public
Established	9 December 2018
Affiliation	Panacloud Pvt. Ltd
Location	Pakistan
Website	https://www.piaic.org

Available Programs

PIAIC is currently offering following of the technologies:

• Artificial Intelligence
• Cloud Native and Mobile Web Computing
• Blockchain
• Internet of Things(IoT)

Distance Learning Education

PIAIC offers programs for distance learning as well as on-site learning, allowing students from across Pakistan to enroll online.^[9][10] However, students need to be present for exams onsite in order to enroll into the program and for examinations throughout the course of study The program has an initial target to enroll as many as 100,000 students within a year.^[11] After a successful launch in Karachi with 12,000 students enrolling, PIAIC have started registering students in other major cities like Islamabad and Faisalabad and soon plan on offering programs in Lahore, Quetta, and Peshawar.^[12][13]

Javaid Laghari has lamented standards of IT education in Pakistan, including the PIAIC, for not being on par with the developed world. He argues that this has led to low IT exports, especially in high-tech services. While praising the PIAIC as a "good start" for "training a large number of coders", he criticises it as providing too little instruction per week and getting poor reviews.^[1]

This initiative is a privately funded not-for-profit educational program that has partnership with non-profit and for-profit organizations like Panacloud, Saylani Welfare International Trust, and Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX)^[14][15]