Pakistan has made a giant stride in the technological realm with the formal inauguration of the country’s biggest and most advanced digital infrastructure hub. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, the Chief of Army Staff and Chief of Defence Forces Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir, inaugurated Sky47 Karakorum-01 Data Centre during a prestigious ceremony in Rawalpindi on 24th July, 2026.
In his speech at the first event, PM Shehbaz Sharif said the project is a milestone in the national development and progress. He expressed absolute confidence that the data centre will serve as a pivotal engine driving Pakistan’s overarching technological transformation and safeguarding its digital future.
Sky47 Karakorum-01 Data Centre Technical Specifications and Infrastructure Capabilities
Power capacity: It has a huge initial power capacity of 8.5 Megawatts (MW).
AI-Ready Architecture: Designed with high-performance computing (HPC) nodes that are optimized for handling large-scale Artificial Intelligence (AI) tasks and complex machine learning algorithms.
Carrier-Neutral Platform: It operates as a carrier-neutral platform that can interoperate with various telecommunication and internet service providers, without dependency on any particular vendor.
Sovereign Cloud Model: It is built on the sovereign cloud framework, ensuring that all critical national, corporate, and public data is securely hosted, processed, and managed within the national borders of Pakistan.
Multi-layered Security: The infrastructure is equipped with multi-layered cyber and physical security systems for maximum data compliance and protection from international cyber threats.
In his speech, the Prime Minister said that for a truly integrated electronic national grid, this successful operational model will be replicated with twin plants in Karachi and Lahore in the near future.
Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif addresses the inaugural ceremony of Sky47, Pakistan’s first purpose-built, AI-ready Tier III/IV data center and sovereign cloud platform, in Rawalpindi on 24 July 2026. pic.twitter.com/ECCmQSJkgx
— Prime Minister's Office (@PakPMO) July 24, 2026
Sky47 Karakorum-01 Data Centre Civil-Military Synergy and Global Partnerships
The successful implementation of the Sky47 Karakorum-01 Data Centre reflects the successful cooperation between the civil government, military leadership and technology partners across the globe. The Prime Minister expressed his high appreciation of Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir for his foresight, strategic planning and the relentless efforts to make this project a reality.
The Prime Minister explicitly connected this milestone with Marka-e-Haq and explained that the milestone was one of the best moments in the history of the country. He said that if the vision of the State institutions is coupled with determination and unity of purpose, the country can be able to address its challenges in the economy or infrastructure and achieve its dream of reaching lofty national targets.
In addition, the government was grateful to the technology giant ZTE, the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication (MoITT) and all the corporate bodies for their irreplaceable technical support in completing the project in time.
Economic and Strategic Impact on Pakistan’s Digital Sovereignty
The data centre’s deployment of high-performance cloud storage further strengthens Pakistan’s digital sovereignty and national resilience by ensuring data is stored locally. Previously, local businesses, finance institutions and government ministries were required to send their heavy computing data to the overseas server in Europe, North America or the Middle East. This dependency resulted in significant foreign currency outflows and potential data privacy and sovereignty issues.
The Sky47 platform can solve these problems. By hosting locally, data latency is significantly reduced, operational costs for domestic tech startups are lowered and foreign exchange savings of millions of dollars can be achieved. It will make Pakistan a dynamic, progressive and forward looking digital hub, which would be able to manage its own critical data ecosystems in a secure manner.
