Exceptional technology on display at Gitex 2025

Inayat-ur-Rahman & Sajjad Ahmad

Pakistan’s Tech Destination Pavilion was officially inaugurated at Gitex Global 2025, marking a powerful continuation of the country’s rise as a global technology hub

The inauguration ceremony was led by Federal Minister for IT & Telecom, Shaza Fatima Khawaja, accompanied by Rana Ihsaan Afzal Khan, Coordinator to the Prime Minister on Commerce, Ambassador Faisal Niaz Tirmizi, Pakistan’s Envoy to the UAE, Rafique Ahmed Buriro, Additional Secretary Ministry of IT & Telecom & CEO Ignite, Hussain Muhammad , Consul General of Pakistan in Dubai, Brigadier Syed Nadir Hussain Shah, Special Investment Facilitation Council, (SIFC), CEO of the Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB), Abu Bakar, CEO National Information Technology Board (NITB), Mr Faisal Ratyal, Chairman P@SHA, Mr Syed Sajjad and Trade & Investment Counsellor Ali Zeb Khan. The event drew participation from industry leaders, international investors, and global media.

The Pavilion serves as a central hub for B2B meetings, investment networking, partnership announcements, and start-up showcases, creating a vibrant platform for international collaboration. Visitors can experience live demos, tech innovations, and business matchmaking sessions aimed at strengthening Pakistan’s footprint in global technology trade.

Federal Minister for IT & Telecom, Shaza Fatima Khawaja, praised the growing global footprint of Pakistan’s IT sector, stating, “Pakistan’s presence atGitex Global reflects our confidence, our capability, and our commitment to a digitally empowered future under the leadership of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Vision of Digital Nation Pakistan. With a young, skilled workforce and an expanding base of IT exports, Pakistan is ready to play a central role in shaping the global tech economy. The Pakistan Pavilion represents not just our innovation - but our invitation to the world to partner in growth.” The Ministry is facilitating the participation of 10 promising start-ups atGitex in Dubai, one of the world’s largest technology and innovation events. By organizing and supporting this delegation, the Ministry aims to showcase local entrepreneurial talent on a global stage, attract international investment, and foster business development opportunities. This initiative reflects the Ministry’s ongoing commitment to nurturing innovation and accelerating the growth of the start-up ecosystem.

Following Pakistan’s recognition as “Tech Destination of the Year” at Gitex Global 2024, this year 100 leading tech Pakistani companies including 26 under PSEB/ TDAP besides 1000 C level delegates are participating in Gitex 2025.

du launches AI Park and National Hybrid AI: du, the leading telecom and digital services provider, announced two major milestones in its mission to power the UAE’s digital future: the launch of du’s AI Park in Dubai – a visionary around 500 thousands square meter AI Park in Warsan, and the introduction of the National Hybrid AI offering under du Tech which is being showcased at their stand. Together, these initiatives will accelerate sovereign AI innovation and establish one of the Middle East’s most advanced AI ecosystems. The announcement was made atGitex Global 2025, where du is showcasing under the theme “AI’s not just the future. With us, it shapes your next step”.

du’s AI Park in Dubai: The UAE’s Sovereign AI Centre du’s AI Park in Dubai will feature multiple liquid-cooled hyperscale data centers delivering up to 1 GW of capacity over a period of time, enabling the most demanding AI workloads in a sovereign and fully compliant environment. Beyond infrastructure, the park is designed to host AI research laboratories, start-up incubators, and a sovereign hybrid AI production and compute cluster, ensuring innovators can prototype, scale, and deploy AI solutions securely within the UAE.

The master planning for du’s AI Park has already started. In the future, the du’s AI Park is expected to evolve into a comprehensive AI and digital innovation hub aligned with national strategies, integrating du’s advanced connectivity solutions with GPU-as-a-Service and the National Hybrid AI platform which will play a crucial role in the buildup of national AI infrastructure. Deployment of du’s AI Park will be phased out over 5 years with launches that will focus on bringing research, incubation and hyperscale compute to life.

“Our vision at du is to provide the UAE with a sovereign, secure, and future-proof platform for artificial intelligence,” said Fahad Al Hassawi, CEO, du. “With du’s AI Park, we are not only delivering world-class digital infrastructure but also building the foundation for a thriving AI innovation ecosystem. This underscores du’s role in advancing the UAE’s economic diversification and technological leadership.” The du’s AI Park will benefit from du’s local and global cable connectivity that provides international subsea, terrestrial links and global submarine cables to allow it to function as a digital hub. The du AI Park will comply with all national AI data and security policies, ensuring full auditability, transparency, and governance across mission-critical workloads. By combining sovereign AI control and data plane, liquid-cooled sustainability principles, data centre scalability, and an innovation hub for talent and startups, du will shape an AI-driven economy and set new global benchmarks for trusted technology infrastructure.

National Hybrid AI: Making AI a part of everyday life Alongside the Park, du Tech introduced National Hybrid AI, a first-of-its-kind platform that expands the capabilities of du Tech’s National Hypercloud. It provides government entities and enterprises with an integrated set of services to develop AI applications in their cloud of choice and deploy them on du Tech’s sovereign infrastructure.

du Tech’s National Hybrid AI combines a sovereign-secure AI production environment with du Tech’s National Hypercloud, advanced 5G and fiber networks, hyperscaler partnerships, and a robust ecosystem of system integrators. This unified AI environment will allow organizations to deploy, manage, and scale applications securely without heavy upfront investments, empowering them to drive innovation and digital transformation A Sovereign AI Future for the UAE du Tech’s National Hybrid AI and AI Park offer a sovereign, secure, and future-proof AI platform designed to support the UAE’s ambition of becoming a world-leading AI-first nation. The integrated infrastructure addresses the critical challenge faced by government and business leaders in deploying AI applications at scale by providing a cost-effective, sovereign solution that enables organizations to achieve their AI digital transformation goals and move from development to production more efficiently.

Lexar: Lexar, a global leader in storage solutions, unveils the future of storage innovation in the Artificial Intelligence (AI) era, at Gitex Global 2025. The company is showcasing the world’s lightest, toughest, and fastest memory solutions, at the Lexar stand located in Hall1, Stand H1-25.

With artificial intelligence (AI) reshaping industries and everyday life—projected by IDC to contribute $19.9 trillion to the global economy by 2030—reliable, high-speed storage is becoming more critical than ever. Lexar’s products are recognized for their large capacities, fast performance, and proven reliability, making them essential tools for AI developers, professional creators, gamers, and PC enthusiasts alike.

“Traditional memory solutions are no longer adequate for today’s demanding AI workloads. The future lies in high-capacity storage that enables faster data processing. Lexar’s all-flash arrays and SSDs, known for their speed and dependability, are becoming the go-to solutions for enterprises working on large-scale AI projects. Simultaneously, the booming imaging services sector in the Middle East is driving demand for our professional-grade storage solutions designed specifically for content creators,” said Fissal Oubida, General Manager – Middle East, Africa & India, Lexar.

Bringing the future of memory forward One of Lexar’s standout innovations at the event is Lexar’s thumb-sized Professional Go Portable SSD with Hub - the world’s lightest portable SSD at just 13 grams. This groundbreaking innovation is optimized for the iPhone 16/17 series and Android devices, and is specifically designed for content creators to shoot seamless video from a mobile phone. Also taking the spotlight is the armour Series, which includes the world’s first stainless steel SD cards—ARMOR GOLD and armour SILVER PRO. These cards are built for durability, with strength up to 37 times that of standard SD cards, offering photographers, videographers, and content creators unmatched reliability for their demanding workflows. Another highlight is the armour 700 Portable SSD, a rugged, high-speed storage solution offering up to 2000MB/s read/write speeds and full cross-platform compatibility—perfect for mobile professionals.

The CFexpress 4.0 Series is also making waves, with Type-B DIAMOND, GOLD, SILVER, and Type-A GOLD cards engineered for lightning-fast performance. Designed for 8K video and ultra-high-res photography, these cards cater to creators who demand top-tier speed and capacity.

Elevating the Gaming Experience Lexar hasn’t forgotten the gaming community. AtGitex, the company is showcasing its ARES RGB 2nd Gen DDR5 Desktop Memory, featuring SK Hynix DRAM chips with speeds up to 8000MT/s (and 6000MT/s CL26), designed for elite desktop gaming performance. For handheld gamers, Lexar introduces the PLAY PRO microSD Express Card, which integrates PCIe technology for blazing-fast speeds—up to 900MB/s read and 600MB/s write—offering dramatically faster load and download times.

Engineered for AI developers, gamers, and creators, Lexar is showcasing two next-generation SSDs: the Lexar Professional NM990 PCIe Gen5.0 NVMe M.2 2280 SSD and the Lexar Professional NM1090 PRO PCIe Gen5.0 NVMe M.2 2280 SSD. Both these SSDs utilize PCIe 5.0 technology to deliver incredible speeds—up to 14,000MB/s read and 11,000MB/s write—nearly doubling the performance of Gen 4 drives, providing superior performance for serious gamers and professional rendering.

“As the Middle East region solidifies its position as a global hub for gaming and imaging, Lexar’s high-performance products empower users to push creative and technological boundaries. From lightning-fast PCIe 5.0 SSDs to the latest microSD Express technology for handheld gamers, we offer a full suite of data storage innovations designed to help our customers scale and succeed in the digital world,” concluded Oubida.