Islamabad, Pakistan—Pakistan’s finance ministry said Sunday it would allocate 2,000 megawatts of excess power for crypto mining and AI data centres.
Generative AI requires colossal computing power to process information accumulated in gigantic databases and is driving massive global demand for energy.
Although Pakistan has an installed capacity of about 45,000 megawatts, demand peaks at around 30,000 megawatts in summers, according to the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, with the government liable to pay independent power providers for unused capacity.
“Redirecting idle energy, especially from plants operating below capacity, allows Pakistan to convert a long-standing financial liability into a sustainable, revenue-generating opportunity,” the finance ministry said in a statement.
The allocation was “the first phase of a national initiative to power bitcoin mining and artificial intelligence (AI) data centres”, it added.
One 100 megawatt data centre can use as much power as 100,000 households, according to a report published last month by the International Energy Agency (IEA), which predicted data centres will consume about three percent of global energy by 2030.
Despite the unused capacity, large parts of Pakistan are without a reliable power supply because of distribution constraints and decades of mismanagement of the sector.
Meanwhile, households are increasingly turning to solar power to avoid high electricity tariffs, further impacting government revenues.
The South Asian nation, with a population of 250 million, came close to default in 2023 before the International Monetary Fund provided a bailout.
The latest tranche of money was released earlier this month following a review by the IMF board, as the government thrashes out its next budget due to be announced next month.
Source: https://manilastandard.net/
