Less than a week after Pakistan unveiled a plan to channel 2,000 megawatts of surplus electricity into Bitcoin mines and artificial-intelligence data centres, the International Monetary Fund has asked Islamabad authorities for “urgent clarification” and scheduled a stand-alone virtual meeting with the Finance Ministry to discuss the power allocation.

The request lands in the middle of negotiations on Pakistan’s 2025/26 budget and only days after the country drew a second disbursement—SDR 760 million ($1.02 billion)—under its $7 billion Extended Fund Facility, bringing total IMF cash received this year to roughly $2 billion. The Fund has also approved a parallel $1.4 billion climate-resilience programme, deepening Islamabad’s reliance on multilateral finance at a moment when its external

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