KARACHI: A Pakistani digital agency specializing in web and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies has entered Saudi Arabia’s multibillion-dollar information technology market after forging a strategic partnership with a Riyadh-based company, according to one of its officials.

The kingdom is restructuring its economy around technological lines as part of Vision 2030, a development framework aimed at reducing its dependence on oil and expanding public service sectors such as health, education, infrastructure, recreation, and tourism.

In 2019, the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund announced a $500 billion investment in AI and other emerging technologies for the next decade.

AlphaVenture, the Pakistani firm, has teamed up with Tajreedpro, a Saudi organization, to share AI and other technical support.

“We are working on a personalized image generation tool that will not only respond to commands in English but also Arabic,” Saad Mughal, the company’s co-founder, told Arab News on Friday. “This has not been done in the past where you can localize software or AI tools to generate pictures or other things by using local languages.”

Tajreedpro offers various solutions, such as brand identity development, communication material production, photography, video production, and artistic project creation, to its clients.

Mughal said his company is developing a platform called Hunary with the Saudi firm and will deliver it within the current year.

“Tajreed and we are working together on a platform called Hunary, where we are the tech arm for them, and we are implementing the entire AI and Web part, and Tajreed is looking after the business side of it,” he added.

AlphaVenture launched an AI tool by building a context layer on top of ChatGPT earlier this month as an experiment, which received an overwhelming global response.

Mughal said his company’s decision to enter the Saudi market would also help Pakistan enhance its IT exports and increase the country’s visibility in the global market.

According to official data, Pakistan exported $223 million worth of IT services in March 2023, with a total export of $1.94 billion in the last nine months of the current fiscal year.

Pakistan’s IT exports are mainly concentrated in the United States, United Kingdom, and Middle East, with a significant portion of these exports consisting of software consultancy, e-commerce, automation, mobile banking, financial services, and software development.