South Asia Investor Review

Ilyas Khan, the British Pakistan founder of Quantinuum, became a billionaire in the company’s IPO on NASDAQ last week. Khan is a pioneer in the revolutionary field of quantum computing which could speed up computing by orders of magnitude. It will have a huge impact in AI and encryption.  Dr. Irfan Siddiqui , a Pakistani-American professor of Physics at University of California at Berkeley, is another top expert in quantum computing.  Ilyas Khan, British Pakistani Founder of Quantinuum. Source: 2023 BLOOMBERG FINANCE LP Quantinuum raised $1.68 billion in an initial public offering last week, making its founder Illyas Khan a billionaire, according to  Forbes . The listing, which is the largest to date for a quantum startup, valued Quantinuum at over $15.6 billion after it sold 28 million shares at $60 each on June 3. Its shares opened at $58 per share on June 9. Khan, who owns around 15% of the company, is now worth $2.2 billion. Quantinuum uses a new type of quantum ...

British Pakistani Humza Yousaf, 37, has made history. He has become the first Muslim to lead Scotland after winning the election of the Scottish National Party (SNP) to succeed Nicola Sturgeon. He is also the youngest person to be elected First Minister of Scotland. Humza's father was born in Pakistan and his mother in Kenya.  "We should all take pride in the fact that today we have sent a clear message, that your color of skin, your faith, is not a barrier to leading the country we all call home", he declared in his victory speech. Back in 2016, he took the oath as a member of the Scottish parliament in Urdu, Pakistan's national language.  Currently, there are 5 members of Pakistani origin serving in the Scottish Parliament and 29 in the British Parliament.  Scottish Leader Humza Yousaf Scottish Independence: He has vowed to lead his nation to independence from Britain, now led by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, a British Indian. Channel 4 News quoted him as saying: ...

A recent Dawn newspaper article entitled " Getting Ahead in the West " by British journalist Owen Bennet Jones suggests that Pakistanis in the US and the UK are doing poorly relative to their Indian counterparts. It builds this narrative using the example of 3 ministers of Indian origin and just one junior minister of Pakistani origin in Prime Minister Boris Johnson's cabinet. It also cites the example of the choice of Kamala Harris, who is seen as African-American in the US political context, on the Democratic presidential ticket headed by former Vice President Joseph R. Biden. British Pakistanis:  While it is true that the current British government has three ministers of Indian origin, it is also true that British Pakistanis Sajid Javid and Sayeeda Warsi held senior cabinet posts in recent British governments headed by Prime Ministers Teresa May and David Cameron.  In addition to cabinet memberships, British Pakistanis have been elected as mayors of several cities, inc...

Twelve  British Pakistanis , including 5 women, have been elected members of parliament (MPs) in recent elections held in the United Kingdom, according to  media reports .  Seven of them are members of the Labor Party and three belong to the Conservative Party. This sets a new record with the increase of two MPs from the May 2012 elections that resulted in the election of  10 MPs of Pakistani origin . British Pakistanis make up 1.8% of the British population, about the same as their representation in the House of Commons. Six of the Twelve British-Pakistani MPs British Pakistani MPs and Peers: In addition to the 12 British Pakistanis in the House of Commons, there are 8 members of the House of Lords, the upper house of the British Parliament, bringing the total strength of  British Pakistanis  in the UK parliament to 20. Most of them are from very humble backgrounds in rural Pakistan. Majority of Pakistanis in the UK are from Mirpur and its surround...