Pakistan, Oct. 12 -- SAARC Chamber of Commerce and Industry former president Iftikhar Ali Malik on Sunday stressed the urgent need for developing localized artificial intelligence (AI) models and applying them across all sectors to achieve sustainable economic growth and meet future challenges of global competitiveness.

According to a spokesperson, he said Pakistan had a large population, a young workforce and an established information technology (IT) and IT-enabled services sector, providing a foundation for moving towards higher-value AI development, integration and specialized services.

He said Chinese open-source AI models could help Pakistan make this transition without incurring the enormous costs associated with developing front...