South Asia Investor Review

Barrick Gold CEO Mark Bristow says he’s “super excited” about the company’s Reko Diq copper-gold development in Pakistan. Speaking about the Pakistani mining project at a conference in the US State of Colorado, the South Africa-born Bristow said “This is like the early days in Chile, the Escondida discoveries and so on”, according to  Mining.com , a leading industry publication. "It has enormous upside potential". He was referring to Pakistan’s untapped discovery potential. Escondida was the first discovery of copper in Chile which is now the world's largest producer and exporter of copper. Last year, the South American country exported nearly $20 billion worth of copper.  Barrick Gold CEO Mark Bristow in Balochistan, Pakistan. Source: Quetta Voice “Copper has no substitutes,” Bristow continued. “It is as strategic as gold is precious, and we’re bringing new copper projects online just as the supply squeeze hits.” Comparing Reko Diq to Escondida, he said "walking acr...

Citizens of Lahore have been choking from dangerous levels of toxic smog for weeks now. Schools have been closed and outdoor activities, including travel and transport, severely curtailed to reduce the burden on the healthcare system.  Although toxic levels of smog have been happening at this time of the year for more than a decade, this year appears to be particularly bad with hundreds of people hospitalized to treat breathing problems. Millions of Lahoris have seen their city's air quality index (AQI) cross the 1,000 mark several times this month - anything above 300 is considered dangerous.  What can Pakistan do to cut this level of air toxicity? Is there a silver bullet here? Let's try and understand the root causes of this problem to answer these questions.  NASA Satellite Images of Fires and Smog Taken on Nov 6, 2024. Source: NASA South Asia is particularly susceptible to pollutants that hang in the air for extended periods of time. The US National Aeronautics and S...

National University of Science and Technology (NUST), National Information Technology Board (NITB) and Telecom network operator Jazz have signed a  Memorandum of Understanding  (MOU) to develop Pakistan’s first indigenous Large Language Model (LLM) with focus on Urdu, including datasets for Pashto and Punjabi languages. It is aimed at empowering individuals, businesses, and organizations with advanced AI tools in their native languages. The envisioned LLM is expected to drive innovation in Generative AI applications, boosting productivity and accessibility in critical sectors like healthcare, education, and agriculture. GPT-4 Accuracy Scores. Source: The Economist Generative AI tools such as  ChatGPT  are powered by large language models, or LLMs. These models need to be trained on vast amounts of data in specific languages to be useful. Unfortunately, the Urdu content of the Internet is less than  0.1% . This will present a challenge for the developers of ...