Pakistan's 2,000 MW for Bitcoin and AI Looks Different When Winter Power Costs Rs45 a Unit

In May 2025 Pakistan's finance ministry announced that the government had allocated 2,000 MW of electricity in the first phase of a national initiative to power bitcoin mining and AI data centres. The pitch was simple. Pakistan had more generating capacity than it could use, especially in winter, and it was paying capacity charges on idle plants regardless. Selling some of that surplus to energy-hungry computing facilities at a price above marginal cost would raise utilisation, bring in foreign exchange and spread fixed costs over more units.

Seventeen months later the plan has not been implemented at the proposed rates, and the conditions that justified it have shifted. Business Recorder reported in July 2025 that in September 2024 the Power Division proposed a six-month incremental consumption package for October to March at marginal cost, about Rs23 per kWh, based on the previous year's usage. Dunya News reported that the government planned to offer electricity at up to Rs24 per unit for bitcoin mining, against a surplus it put at 7,000 MW, of which 2,000 MW would be allocated to crypto mining.

In July 2025 the Power Division and the IMF denied reports that the Fund had rejected the plan outright. A Power Division spokesperson told Arab News that the secretary had said the government was still negotiating and hoped to reach a solution. The case for the plan assumed that surplus electricity could be produced cheaply. Arab News reported on 2 October that an official at the Independent System and Market Operator said at least 800 MW was being generated from furnace oil between 5 pm and 1 am, out of 1,400 MW of available furnace oil capacity, to limit imports of regasified LNG.

Against those numbers, a tariff of Rs22 to Rs24 per unit does not cover the fuel cost of the marginal plant, let alone its capacity payment. The confusion at the heart of the debate is between capacity and energy.