Tech Optimism in Pakistan Is Real — But It Is Concentrated in Three Cities Pakistan’s IT exports are growing at 20 percent a year, its freelance economy is the fourth largest on earth, and its startup founders are being cited by global press. Almost none of that growth is happening in Multan, Quetta, Peshawar, or the 130 million Pakistanis who live outside the country’s three largest cities.

Abstract

The headline numbers from Pakistan’s technology sector have, for the past three years, been almost unreasonably good. IT and IT-enabled services exports reached $3.8 billion in FY2024–25, growing at roughly 20 percent year-on-year and outpacing every other major export category. The country ranks fourth globally in freelance workforce volume. Mobile broadband subscriptions have crossed 136 million, making Pakistan one of the ten largest broadband markets on earth by subscriber count. The Digital Nation Pakistan Act 2025, passed in January 2025, established a new Pakistan Digital Authority and formally committed the state to digital transformation as a pillar of economic policy. And yet, if you drive two hours in almost any direction from the centres of Karachi, Lahore, or Islamabad, the digital economy ceases to be a lived reality and becomes, instead, a set of statistics about somewhere else.