Page 69 - CMA Journal (July-August 2025)

Focus Section

• Treat bitcoin mining as an energy/industrial policy automation. Recent projects such as URAAN Pakistan
issue: require grid-balancing, renewable share, heat Data Centre and the country’s first Data Park are further
reuse, and transparent fiscal terms before scaling. enhancing accessibility and evidence-based
policymaking.
Data Analytics in Pakistan
Competition is led by telecom and tech providers. PTCL
Pakistan’s data analytics sector is expanding rapidly,
Cloud offers tier-III centers with redundancy and security.
driven by cloud adoption, AI integration, and business Zong Cloud positions itself as Pakistan’s only
intelligence tools. The Business Intelligence market is “business-ready” cloud with AI-driven features, while Jazz
projected to reach USD 52 million in 2025 and grow to Cloud targets SMEs with disaster recovery services. Huawei
USD 85 million by 2030 (CAGR 10.3%). The Public Cloud and Khazana focus on secure financial cloud services,
market will rise from USD 1.13 billion in 2025 to USD 3.18 whereas public providers like NTC and SCO primarily serve

Case studies highlight Data Analytics in Pakistan growing innovation. BariTechSol and Zenveus provide
scalable global IT solutions, Bravado Solutions delivers AI-driven automation and IoT integration, and
Techpigeon specializes in cloud migration.

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AAI startups are also emerging like Vyro (AI content crea on), Traverssaal.ai (enteerprise AI s
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Xyylexa (medical imaging) ) (retail/vide )), and Farmddar (AI for agriculture). Together,
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thhey showcase a fast-growing ecosys s o oned for reggional compee

billion by 2030 (CAGR 23%), while Cloud Security is
government agencies. However, a major challenge
expected to increase from USD 3.3 million to USD 10.3
remains the shortage of local data centers, which raises
million during the same period (CAGR 25.6%). Pakistan’s
costs and increases reliance on foreign hosting.
AI market alone is forecast to hit USD 861 million in 2025
and USD 3.5 billion by 2031 (CAGR 26.3%). Data Analytics in MENA
Government initiatives underpin this momentum. The In the MENA region, data analytics and AI are rapidly
Digital Policy 2018, NITB’s 180+ e-governance projects, emerging as strategic national priorities. The regional AI
and entrepreneurship hubs such as NICs are creating a market is projected to reach USD 9.34 billion in 2025 and
strong foundation. National centers like NCAI, NCBC, and grow at a 26% CAGR to nearly USD 38 billion by 2031, with
NCRA are advancing AI, big data, robotics, and Saudi Arabia and the UAE driving much of this expansion.

Verified Case Studies from MENA

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UAE — Dubai Pulse (city-scale data exchange)
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Smart Du m m consolidatees governmennt and privatee datasets intto
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dashboards and APIs for transport , service plannning, and open-data
reuse, serving as a leading examplee of urban-sc
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Saudi Arabia — SDAIA aata Bank & AApps
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SDAIA centralizes government dataasets in the NN Bank and depp
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facing apps like Tawakkalna, using aa vvice delivery,
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during an D, supportedd by Saudi Araabia’s PDPL annd data goverrnance
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framework.
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—
Bahrain — BENEFIT (payments andd ees)
BENEFIT operates na onal paymennt rails, creditt reference syystems, and digital ID
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infrastructure for banks and fintechh ees enable risk scoring,
fraud det t o open bankingg. In 2024, usaage and authee uurged,
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g g the impact of shared datta infrastructuure across thee ecosystem.
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Morocco — Payment Switch Analyy SSWAM)
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Morocco w witch, SWAM,, processed approximatelyy 401 million ccard
payments and 5.3 million mobile-wwallet paymennts in 2024. HHPS has commmercialized
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switch data for merch and risk mannagement, dee growing
nn.
ICMA’s Chartered Management Accountant, Jul-Aug 2025 67