Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Alibaba reached a broad technology partnership in Hangzhou on May 25 after Alibaba chairman Joe Tsai used the company’s Qwen app to draft a document during Sharif’s China visit.

Sharif asked for a comprehensive strategic agreement on the spot.

Tsai then entered keywords into Qwen on his phone and discussed a draft covering AI infrastructure, cloud computing, healthcare, ecommerce, and digital payments.

The partnership builds on Alibaba’s existing presence in Pakistan through Daraz, its South Asian ecommerce unit, and a 2022 cloud partnership between Daraz and Alibaba Cloud in Pakistan.

Execution could still depend on Pakistan’s data rules.

The country does not yet have a comprehensive data protection law, and those rules could tighten further if a draft bill requiring local processing of some critical personal data is enacted.

The announcement also follows Daraz layoffs disclosed in 2024, when Alibaba’s South Asian commerce unit was restructured.

🔗 Source: South China Morning Post

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