In what may seem an unusual form of diversification, Pakistan’s Mari Petroleum Company Limited (MPCL) has said it plans to invest in the establishment of data centres, cloud computing, artificial intelligence and related technology ventures.
According to a number of reports, MPCL, in collaboration with its partners, will lead this expansion by developing Tier III and Tier IV-certified, purpose-built data centres across Pakistan to meet the data management and processing needs of a wide range of public and private institutions. Pakistan currently has 22 data centres.
As local press resource The Business Recorder puts it, these data centres will provide co-location and cloud services, addressing the evolving requirements of businesses across different sectors.
The move may seem unusual, but it isn’t totally unexpected. As the Data Centre Dynamics website points out, in August, MPCL announced the formation of a subsidiary focusing on cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI). The company reportedly said this week that it has formed a new digital infrastructure subsidiary with an equity investment of some US$36 million.
The news of MPCL’s move into data centres appeared this week in a Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) stock exchange announcement, which was notable mainly for its brevity. Indeed, numbers of data centres, where they will be located, size, scale, partnerships, and timing of the date centre rollout were not mentioned.
However, the PSX announcement said the project launch ceremony for the first data centre took place this week in Karachi and suggested that MPCL’s plans to form a dedicated company relevant to the sector will help tap the rising demand for cloud computing and artificial intelligence.
MPCL, founded in 1984, is controlled by Pakistani conglomerate the Fauji Foundation, which, says Data Centre Dynamics, is largely controlled by the country’s armed forces.