The next big bet
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PAKISTAN and its love for miracle fixes. In the 1960s, it was the Green Revolution. In the 1990s, independent power plants and in the 2000s, telecoms with a side of enlightened moderation. Each lifted GDP briefly, each collapsed just as quickly. None fixed the fundamentals: a booming population now over 240m, polio still at our doorstep, chronic illiteracy, and a state keener on policing its citizens than enabling them. Today, the shiny new buzzwords are minerals, crypto, and artificial intelligence.
This isn’t future-proofing; this is vertigo on repeat.
The mineral dream is seductive, though. Reko Diq holds one of the world’s largest copper and gold reserves, valued at over $60bn — enough to keep miners busy for four decades. Barrick Gold, our new favourite Canadian, promises billions in revenue and thousands of jobs. But Pakistan’s track record in extractives suggests something else: rent-seeking, endless litigation and locals watching trucks carry wealth out of their land while they remain poor. Balochistan has heard such promises before. Pakistan has been burned before and is $900m poorer for it. Without transparent contracts, realistic ToRs, community ownership and real security, all the copper in the world won’t save Pakistan from a dustier billion-dollar worth deja vu moment.
Crypto is shinier still, and shadier. In 2021, Pakistan briefly ranked as the world’s third-largest digital coin market, ahead of the UK. For a moment, Bitcoin looked like an escape hatch from inflation — until the State Bank pulled the plug and trade slunk underground. What flourished was not innovation but scams, Ponzi schemes, and laundering rackets. Fast forward to 2025: Islamabad is now flirting with a Crypto Council, a strategic Bitcoin Reserve, and has earmarked 2,000MW of electricity for crypto mining and data centres — power that could have kept hospitals running through blackouts. The IMF raised its eyebrows, the Finance Ministry declared crypto would “never be legalised,” and yet the circus continues, one photo-op after another. For a country where PayPal refuses to enter and Stripe won’t touch us because of financial risk and regulatory overkill, betting on ghost coins is no digital revolution; it’s like selling the family silver for Monopoly money and calling it an IPO.
AI is already here, already earning, already employable.
AI, at least, is real business. Pakistan already exports nearly $3.9bn in IT and tech services, growing 18pc last year, powered by one of the largest freelancer bases in the world. Riding this digital high, the government’s new AI policy promises to train one million professionals by 2030. Impossible? Yes. Ridiculous? No. Even if only a fraction of this promise materialises, AI-driven services, data engineering, analytics, content generation, fintech, and health could double exports within five years. Unlike crypto, AI matches the global demand curve. Unlike mining, it doesn’t hinge on megaprojects doomed by politics and insurgency.
That said, AI’s road to success is also not that simple. In 2024 alone, Pakistan imposed 21 internet shutdowns, the highest in its history. The economic cost was staggering: global trackers estimate Pakistan lost over $1.6bn from internet and social media disruptions that year. Add to that creeping censorship, a China-style firewall under construction, laws that criminalise online speech, weak intellectual property protection, a drying investor pipeline, and Kafkaesque policies for repatriating profits.
This is not an environment for innovation. This is an environment where founders are left wondering whether their code will be cloned overnight, their voices silenced by morning. AI may be the future, but in Pakistan, even the future seems in need of an NOC.
History offers a humble lesson. Co-untries that leapfrogged into prosperity — South Korea with electronics, Vietnam with textiles, India with IT — all picked one big bet and built policy, capital, and skills around it. Pakistan cannot afford another dizzying cycle of economic cosplay. Crypto is unlikely ever to be regulated at scale, let alone trusted by global markets. Minerals will eventually matter, but “eventually” doesn’t plug today’s current account deficit or tomorrow’s import bill. AI, though intimidating, is already here, already earning, already employable.
The playbook is obvious: let code and digital exports fund classrooms and clinics today, let copper power our grids tomorrow, and let crypto stay in the toy box where it belongs.
The “Actual Bet,” then, is whether Pakistan’s institutions will finally show the foresight and discipline to let innovation breathe and the Canadians dig. Until then, the only thing multiplying faster than our population will be the bills we can’t pay.
The writer is a tech founder and CEO. She writes on innovation and digital ecosystems in emerging markets.
Published in Dawn, October 15th, 2025
