The government has moved ahead with establishing a sovereign, cloud based and AI enabled data centre for the National Telecommunication Corporation in Karachi, with the project now entering its procurement phase. Minister for Information Technology and Telecommunications Shaza Fatima Khawaja, in a written reply to the National Assembly, said the Establishment of NTC Data Center at Karachi project was approved under the Annual Development Programme 2025-26 and is currently under procurement.
The minister said the facility has been designed primarily to serve NTC’s South Region market, including government entities operating there, with the initial setup being procured now and subsequently scaled up according to government client requirements. According to NTC, the project aims to establish sovereign data centre infrastructure within Pakistan, reducing dependence on foreign cloud platforms while providing basic AI services and strengthening data sovereignty, cybersecurity, regulatory compliance and operational resilience.
The facility is expected to address growing computing and storage requirements across NTC’s South Region, providing localized hosting services to federal and provincial government entities operating in Sindh and Balochistan, and offering Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service, disaster recovery and business continuity services. NTC said the regional facility would reduce pressure on infrastructure nodes in the northern parts of the country while improving the reliability, availability and response times of critical e-governance platforms, reinforcing implementation of the Pakistan Cloud First Policy through a standardized and secure domestic cloud framework for government organizations.
The Karachi facility will incorporate foundational AI capabilities aligned with Pakistan’s emerging National AI Policy framework, with NTC stating its regional AI capable node will operate through a vendor neutral computing stack and sovereign, locally contextualized large language models, enabling secure AI inference and model deployment for strategic public sector applications. Seven applications have already been submitted for accreditation under the Cloud First Policy, including NTC itself, positioning the Karachi centre as part of Pakistan’s broader effort to build sovereign digital infrastructure, reduce reliance on foreign cloud providers and support the country’s transition toward cloud and AI enabled public services across sectors including health, education, finance and industry.
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