Can Pakistan Enter the AI Race from Near the Back? Do Its Material Realities Support This Ambition?
A year ago, Pakistan announced that it
would allocate 2,000 MW of electricity to AI data centres and Bitcoin mining.
The initiative was presented as a way to generate revenue from surplus
electricity, attract foreign investment, and expand the digital economy. Since
then, global competition over AI infrastructure has accelerated sharply.
According to UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD), data centres accounted for more
than one-fifth of the value of all global greenfield investment projects in
2025, attracting over US$270 billion in announced investment. For the first
time, investment in telecommunications—driven largely by AI data
centres—surpassed renewable energy.
This shift offers Pakistan a genuine
opportunity. Yet international experience suggests that AI infrastructure is no
longer a competition determined mainly by low-cost electricity. Countries that
attract large-scale investment combine available energy with reliable
transmission networks, high-speed digital connectivity, predictable regulation,
and strong investor confidence. Emerging economies such as Malaysia and India
have followed this sequence, developing broader digital ecosystems before
positioning themselves as regional AI infrastructure hubs. Pakistan, by contrast,
enters the race with only 31 commercial data centres, compared with 296 in
India and 114 in Malaysia. The gap reflects ecosystem readiness more than a
lack of ambition.
The principal constraint is not
electricity alone but the interaction among electricity, water, and
infrastructure. Although Pakistan has allocated power for AI development, data
centres consume far more than electricity. A conventional 1 MW facility may
require around 26 million litres of water each year for cooling, and the
largest AI campuses now operate at hundreds of megawatts. This changes the
policy debate from one about surplus electricity to one about resource
prioritisation. As AI infrastructure expands globally, countries are
increasingly planning energy, water, and digital networks together rather than
treating them as separate sectors.
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This does not diminish Pakistan’s AI
ambitions, but it does raise an important strategic question. Should the
country compete for large hyperscale AI campuses, or should it pursue a more
targeted strategy centred on sovereign AI infrastructure serving domestic
businesses, government agencies, universities, and regional cloud demand?
Pakistan’s first sovereign AI cloud, supported by approximately 3,000
enterprise-grade GPUs, suggests that such a pathway is already emerging.
