As for local products with a primarily domestic or regional market, i.e. the e-quran or the various local GPS-based fleet tracking systems, those have all grown at decent percentages for the past 2-3 years in Pakistan, despite the global recession.

the key to promoting this industry is through our universities. yet when funding is cut off and there is barely enough money for R&D, I don’t see that growth taking place. I hope that the goverment gets its act together.

1) FiveRivers’ Sirius handheld computer – http://www.fiveriverstech.com
2) Extensive UAV industry and associated software/electronics (civil and military) – http://techlahore.wordpress.com/2008/11/26/pakistans-growing-software-expertise-increasing-its-defence-capabilities/
3) Pakistan-owned Jointech’s Windows CE based laptop (designed in Pk) – http://www.jointech.com.hk/products_JL7200.html
4) Mentor Graphics hardware design center – Lahore based
5) As you mentioned, PalmChip’s Pakistan based design center
6) FPGA research at LUMS, SAHICS (BCCI FAST), GIKI, NUST, PIEAS and pretty much everywhere else. This is important, because if you can’t produce an ASIC, configuring an FPGA is “Second best”. If the application proves itself out and there is high-volume demand, you can always get an ASIC produced.
7) Karachi based company, DigiTek, developing FPGA based products in Pakistan – http://www.digitekeng.com/2.html
8 ) Some of the hardware research at PIEAS is yielding interesting publications, e.g. http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=1564771
9) There are numerous Digital Quran manufacturers HQ’d out of Pakistan with all the hardware and software development being done in Pk, and manufacturing outsourced to China. Here’s one example: http://www.alibaba.com/product-free/101163967/Digital_Quran_Idq_718_Large_2.html
10) ASIC design at CARE Pakistan – http://www.carepvtltd.com/
11) Streaming Networks based in Islamabad, where all their development occurs (video phones, video surveillance etc.) – http://www.streaming-networks.com/

I can go on and on, but hopefully this will be enough for now…

Can we produce chips, processors, ASICs, graphics cards, or hardware? I know Palmchip opened a design/production center in Pakistan a few years ago. There isn’t much to see on the civilian side, however, I do know that there is a lot of stuff going on in the military-industrial complex. I know AWC (Air Weapons Complex) has a lot of stuff going on in hardware.

Also, do we have the software engineers that can write and develop complex software? Where do our universities stand, when it comes to quality education? NUST has the highest ranking in the Top 500, at #376. How many engineers can our universities produce? More importantly, I think we should also highlight the lack of industry in Pakistan.

Ever since Bhutto embarked on his massive nationalization campaign, Pakistan’s industrial backbone has been broken. this explains the massive brain drain our country has been going through the last 20-30 years. this explains why most Pakistani’s run away to the US, UK, and Canada, it’s because they won’t find jobs here. the previous government finally took a step to correct that problem by promoting entrepreneurship.

I can only give credit for whatever little development we have had to former President Musharraf. at least during his time, we had a clear sense of direction. Our universities had something to work towards. Now, the goverment has cut off funding to our universities, public development, and even our nuclear program. I think Pakistan needs to learn a good long lesson for what it has brought back, democracy. I haven’t even seen this government take a single step to promote the new-born IT industry.