The rekindling of Pakistan-United States (US) relations began with the announcement of a milestone oil exploration deal. The trade deal also entails lower tariffs and increased investment in Pakistan. However, there remains no mention of the actual amount of those above ‘lower tariffs’, as the finance ministry announced the beginning of a new era of investments not only in energy, mines, and minerals but also in Information Technology (IT), cryptocurrency, and technology. The heralding in of this new era of congeniality, however, raises the question of whether Pakistan will be able to become the next IT hub for the US, which so far has been the forte of the Indian diaspora.

Pakistan has raw, unpolished talent, but polishing it requires language and academic merits not easily accessible to skilled individuals.

While Pakistan rejoices in an unprecedented win in the trade deal, the situation across the border has gotten tense. Amidst Washington’s simmering tensions with India, the US President Donald Trump imposed a 25 per cent tariff on imports from India, along with unspecified penalties to punish India for energy and arms purchases from Russia, bringing the total rate to a whopping 50 per cent as a means of punishing New Delhi for oiling the Russian war machine in Ukraine.

As the US undergoes a paradigm shift in its policies, the US president, earlier this year, was also found asking the CEO of Apple to stop building in India. As a backdrop, the Indian outpour in the US began in the 1990s, when the US IT sector started developing and satisfied much of its workforce needs with Indian immigrants under the H1B visa program. By the year 2010, 300,000 Indian computer scientists were part of the IT workforce in the US.

According to Statista, a German online platform that collects data and statistics across world businesses and industries, Pakistan is expected to reach US $2.75 revenue in the IT services market. Anticipating an annual growth rate of 5.47% by 2030, Pakistan’s market has, in recent times, witnessed a surge in demand by the global markets. Pakistani hackers continued Bunyan al Marsoos in cyberspace, seven Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) groups launched 1.5 million targeted cyber-attacks targeting critical defense and government infrastructure websites across India, following the Pahalgam terror strike.

More than 2500 Indian surveillance cameras were also hacked. Yet, despite all this, the question still looms overhead as to why Pakistanis have not been able to make a mark in the US IT sector. This can be blamed partially on the H1B visa quota of the 90s, which, although, has been capped now, Pakistan still struggles in the IT sector.

This can primarily be attributed to the fact that in Pakistan, much emphasis is laid upon obtaining higher education in the field of natural sciences, mostly Engineering and Medicine. IT, Social Sciences, Arts, and Basic Sciences are still considered children of a lesser God, as the focus is to opt for studies that earn higher-paying jobs. Moreover, the language barrier as well as the access to higher education an obstacles for the masses.

The cyberwar with India was carried out largely by hackers without formal degrees or professional cybersecurity training.

The cyberwar with India was mainly carried out by hackers who had no degree qualification and/or any professional expertise in cybersecurity systems. This simply points to the fact that the raw, uncut talent is present, but polishing it requires language and academic merits, which, unfortunately, have not been easily accessible to such highly skilled individuals. English language proficiency is also a conundrum as the IELTS proficiency test, as well as the GRE tests, become more expensive and less accessible to middle-class youth struggling to score admissions abroad.

If Pakistan aspires to become the next IT giant in the US, the government needs to incentivize and subsidize IT education. Moreover, in order to remove language barriers, skilled youth aspiring to pursue an education in the field of IT can be monetarily incentivized to prepare and appear in international English language proficiency tests.

Thus, even if the youth plans to follow the Indian pathway of securing F1(student) visas and then scoring H1B(working) visas, whilst working in the US IT industry, their path is paved smoother by their government. The recent shift in US policy towards Pakistan can also be used as an excellent opportunity to set an H1B visa quota for Pakistanis aspiring to offer their services abroad.

Incentivizing IT education and subsidizing language proficiency tests could pave the path for Pakistani youth in the US IT sector.

Pakistan has raw, unpolished talent, which was projected in the cyber war waged during Operation Bunyan-al-Masroor. However, cybersecurity is but a mere fragment of the vast field of IT, an area where Pakistan still needs to polish its human capital. This can only be enabled with government support, hand in glove with a skillfully played foreign policy set on enhancing the IT sector, so that the world witnesses Pakistan as the next IT giant globally.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. They do not represent the views, beliefs, or policies of the Stratheia.