Pakistan is Behind Regional Peers in Setting Up Data Centers

Pakistan has only 11 data centres, which puts it behind its regional peers despite pent-up demand. According to the Digital Economy Report by the Overseas Investors Chamber of Commerce and Industry (OICCI), the data centre industry in Malaysia is worth $1 billion. In comparison, the market in Vietnam is worth $454 million. Pakistan is Behind Regional Peers in Setting Up Data Centers.

Companies and government agencies like NADRA, PTCL, Jazz, Telenor, Zong, Ufone, and several colleges in Pakistan all operate data centres in the country’s three most populous cities: Karachi, Lahore, and Islamabad.

Pakistan is Behind Regional Peers in Setting Up Data Centers

With the recent opening of NITB’s first data centre in Islamabad, the government is taking action to take advantage of the data centres’ many advantages.

With the current haphazard acceptance of cloud services, Pakistan can exploit this emerging industry. The vast majority of Pakistan’s data centres cater to business customers. To expand this market, policymakers and businesses must offer incentives for constructing hyper-scale data centres, promote the growth of local cloud service providers through tax breaks, and work towards integrating government databases.

Building data centres calls for a one-of-a-kind supply chain that involves internet exchanges, hosting, cloud, and fibre optic providers, all of which can be a source of local employment. Multi-tenant data centres typically take three to five years to build, but huge, single-tenant hyper-scale data centres can take five to 10 years. The report “Recommendations for Digital Transformation in Pakistan” states that the global data centre market was worth $215.8 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach $288.3 billion by 2027.

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The research highlighted the difficulties by noting that businesses are discourage from making investments. In such centres due to the high expenses of maintaining them due to the frequent. Electricity shortages and blown-out from a poorly built electrical infrastructure.

Data centres depend on high-capacity fibre optic cabling networks, which are in short supply in Pakistan. Operators of data centres face a serious threat of losing customers and income due. To political instability and the unpredictable nature of censorship. In 2021, for instance, a cyberattack on the Federal Board of Revenue data centre disrupted shipping across the country.

Recommendations

To increase the capacity of the current data centre ecosystem. The government should consider creating a plan to promote investments in the construction of hyper-scale data centres within the country. Two options are offering tax breaks and subsidised real estate for data centre construction.
A Data Centre Task Force should be establish to facilitate talks between the public and business sectors. The task force should consult market participants to determine what needs and preferences should be emphasize to the implementation partners. An effective cloud computing policy implementation requires regular monitoring of predetermined goals.
The capabilities of scalability, security, efficiency, and cutting-edge technology. Offer by data centres are increasingly sought after by businesses and other organisations. Data is the new oil, and protecting it is crucial for businesses’ and nations’ security and independence.