Global Launch

Bangkok · 29 Nov – 1 Dec 2026

Centara Grand at CentralWorld, alongside the Global Digital Health Forum (2–4 Dec).

Enquiries: globaledgeailab@lums.edu.pk

–Days
–Hours
–Minutes

until the launch opens (Bangkok time)

Global Edge AI Lab

Closing the Silicon-to-Soil gap.

2.2 billion people are still offline, nearly all of them in low- and middle-income countries, and disproportionately women and rural communities. If AI only works in the cloud and on expensive phones, it will widen that gap. The Global Edge AI Lab at LUMS builds and tests AI that runs on the low-cost phones people already own, without depending on a connection, so that those left out of the digital economy are not left out of AI too.

How the Lab works
Why the Lab exists

Built for the people AI reaches last

Most AI models are trained and benchmarked on cloud GPUs, then fail on the hardware frontline workers actually carry: phones with limited memory that slow down in heat, on networks that drop out. The Lab measures models on that hardware, under those conditions, and does not certify a model until it works for them.

2.2 billion people are still offline, most in South Asia and Africa Roughly 1 in 4 people worldwide · ITU, 2025
A health worker holds a phone showing a pregnancy scan result beside a handheld ultrasound probe Women waiting in a hospital outpatient area beside a heat-stroke awareness poster Women seated in a clinic room while staff record details at a table Patients on a wooden bench in a clinic, facing staff at a desk
In the field
On the phone models that run offline, in the person’s own language
The Lab is designed to decide it in favour of the disconnected.
Partners

A network across the Global South

The testbed is anchored at LUMS, with regional nodes at the Africa AI Hubs. Each brings its own devices, languages and deployments.

LUMS, LahoreTestbed hub RwandaAfrica AI Hub NigeriaAfrica AI Hub SenegalAfrica AI Hub BangkokLaunch, Nov 2026

Funded by the Gates Foundation