By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Friday inaugurated Pakistan’s largest data centre, along with the Sky47 AI cloud platform, in a ceremony in Islamabad that the premier called nothing short of “awe-inspiring.”
The facility, built with an 8.5 megawatt capacity, was completed in record time, drawing on the expertise of “the best minds from across Pakistan” in both military and civilian sectors.
“The facility we have just visited is awe-inspiring,” Shehbaz told those gathered at the inauguration, adding that it was a privilege and an honour to be part of the ceremony.
The prime minister reserved particular praise for Chief of Defence Forces and Chief of Army Staff Field Marshal Asim Munir, under whose supervision the project was constructed. Sky47 is also in the process of building a second, smaller facility — a 5MW data centre at Karachi’s Port Qasim — which is expected to be completed by September.
Framing the project as evidence of coordinated national effort could achieve, Shehbaz struck an optimistic tone about the country’s economic trajectory. “If we follow this model, there is no reason — and I am absolutely convinced, more than ever before — that not only will we be able to make up for the losses of the past, but we will also create a new, dynamic and forward-looking Pakistan, which is the need of the hour,” he said, acknowledging that the task ahead would not be easy but insisting it was achievable.
Invoking Marka-i-Haq as what he called the “finest moment in Pakistan’s history,” the prime minister said such episodes proved that resolve could overcome adversity. Progress, he argued, required not just the will to negotiate difficulties but “the ardent hope and the energy to turn that into a great opportunity.”
Describing the new facility as “the future of Pakistan,” Shehbaz also credited the leadership of the federal IT minister and secretary, and confirmed that similar data centres are planned for Karachi and Lahore. He called on all organs of the state to align themselves with the new infrastructure without delay, describing it as “a wonderful gift to the people of Pakistan” that offered “impregnable security” and demonstrated that ambitious national goals were within reach “provided we put our act together.”
‘Token intelligence’ will be the economy’s most valuable unit, says IT minister
Federal Minister for IT and Telecommunication Shaza Fatima Khawaja, addressing the same event, described the data centre as “a step in the right direction,” laying the infrastructural groundwork for what she called the production of the most important economic unit of the current era: token intelligence.
Every major sector of the future, she argued, would depend on access to high-performance computing — from healthcare, agriculture and financial services to education, public administration and national security.
Citing projections from McKinsey and Goldman Sachs, Khawaja said global demand for data centres was expected to triple by 2030, while power requirements to sustain that demand would rise by roughly 160 per cent over the same period.
“This is where Pakistan’s opportunity is extraordinary,” she said. “We’re a young nation, we’re a large nation, and we’re a nation of stunning human capability.”
The shortfall holding back the country’s engineers, developers, researchers and entrepreneurs, she said, was not intelligence or ambition but infrastructure — a gap she said the new facility was designed to close. She outlined a broader roadmap running from infrastructure through model development and orchestration to application, culminating in a marketplace where AI capability could be offered “as a service” to meet national needs.
Khawaja also pointed to progress made under the prime minister’s “Digital Nation Pakistan” initiative over the past two years, citing the 5G spectrum auction held earlier this year, a doubling of undersea fibre capacity, reforms to right-of-way rules governing broadband access, AI skills programmes, and a growing network of AI startups supported by national incubation centres across the country.
Part of a wider push into sovereign AI infrastructure
Friday’s launch adds to a series of recent moves by both government and private industry to expand Pakistan’s data infrastructure. Telenor, in partnership with Data Vault, launched the country’s first locally hosted AI data centre and sovereign AI cloud in November 2025.
Last month, Quantum Global Data Centre — a venture backed by the Gul Ahmed Energy Group — announced plans for what it described as Pakistan’s largest Tier III data centre, backed by an initial investment of $230 million and expected to become operational in 2027. The company has signed a strategic partnership with Huawei Pakistan to develop the facility, alongside a linked science and technology park intended to support the country’s broader digital transformation.
Government departments have also increasingly turned to artificial intelligence to modernise operations. The Federal Board of Revenue, among others, has rolled out AI-based internal systems aimed at improving transparency, reducing human intervention and streamlining tax collection.
The trend predates the current wave of announcements: in February 2025, the NED University of Engineering and Technology inaugurated what university officials described as Pakistan’s first “tier-3 certified data centre,” intended to serve both public and private sector IT needs.
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