ISLAMABAD: The launch of the first-ever locally hosted artificial intelligence data centre and sovereign AI cloud by Telenor in collaboration with Data Vault is likely to boost Pakistan’s AI adoption across a range of sectors, including healthcare, finance, and public safety, while also strengthening cybersecurity and data transparency.

The availability of Nvidia circuits also enables enterprises to access advanced graphics processing units (GPUs) for computing and for the locally hosted AI infrastructure.

The development comes amid restrictions by the US on Nvidia from exporting its AI chips, particularly to China, amid a trade war between the two powerhouses. Data Vault, however, said they had a “special” approval from Nvidia for their GPUs.

Besides export restrictions, global GPU shortages and high import costs have also limited Pakistan’s ability to adopt enterprise-grade AI.

Powered by Nvidia enterprise-grade GPUs, data centre to boost artificial intelligence adoption, improve cybersecurity by keeping data within country

However, this project, which was approved after strict checks, provides Pakistan with an opportunity to capitalise on Nvidia accelerators to unlock its AI potential.

The move is likely to upgrade Pakistan’s AI adoption across sectors, such as finance, healthcare, manufacturing, public safety, logistics, agriculture, and government services, by providing the high-performance computing power and compliance-ready environment needed for modern AI applications.

Mehwish Salman Ali, Data Vault chief executive officer, said Data Vault Pakistan was the only data centre in the country providing GPU services. “Though it is difficult, we have obtained more than 3,000 GPUs for usage and provide them as services,” Ms Ali said, adding, “This has made us the only AI-enabled data centre based in the country.”

According to Ms Ali, Data Vault Pakistan has “official and special” approval from Nvidia for GPUs and they buy these from Nvidia partners.

“There is a global shortage of GPUs and there are US export-control sanctions. Pakistan is also on the restricted list, so in normal circumstances, no one in Pakistan can buy these enterprise-grade GPUs legally,” she said, adding that their company went through very “strict technical, compliance and financing checks” for this.

“We started this process early, committed to a multi-year programme and went through their authorised partners, so our project was approved,” she added.

It may be noted that GPU is a specialised electronic circuit designed for digital image processing and to accelerate computer graphics, being present either as a component on a discrete graphics card or embedded on motherboards, mobile phones, personal computers, workstations, and game consoles. This partnership will also help Telenor customers to gain on-demand access to GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS).

Data protection

The company has said that the availability of sovereign GPU infrastructure locally will help Pakistani researchers, startups, enterprises, and universities develop LLMs for Urdu and regional languages, as well as sector-specific AI for fintech and other purposes. As AI is redefining every industry, the core of this revolution lies in GPU computing.

Moreover, by keeping all data within Pakistan, the sovereign cloud strengthens cybersecurity, defence, auditability and transparency, access control and identity management, privacy and digital trust, and national data protection.

As data processing will be entirely within Pakistan’s borders and hosted inside Data Vault’s high-density AI data centre, this will eliminate the risk of the transfer of sensitive datasets, including financial transactions, healthcare imaging, telecom data, and government records, to be processed outside the country.

Currently, there are several sovereign cloud services primarily managed by telecom companies, including the state-owned PTCL and the National Telecommunication Corporation (NTC). But the Pakistani enterprises and public institutions have relied on offshore cloud regions for AI workloads.

Published in Dawn, December 2nd, 2025