In September 2026, Pakistan signed a facility-specific safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for its upcoming 1200 MWe Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), the Chashma Nuclear Power Plant-5 (CHASNUPP-5). It will be the seventh and largest NPP in terms of capacity that China has constructed in Pakistan since 1993. This demonstrates Pakistan’s long-term faith in nuclear energy as a dependable, cost-effective and environmentally sustainable baseload option. With the commissioning of CHASNUPP-5, Pakistan’s nuclear capacity will rise to 4,730 MWe, up from today’s 3,530 MWe, but only half of the 25-year target it set for itself in 2005 of 8,800 MWe. But there is still a long way yet to go: Pakistan’s next nuclear energy benchmark is generating 40,000 MWe of nuclear energy under the Vision 2050.
Closing this 35,270 MWe capacity gap through large reactors alone would mean building about 30 more NPPs, each with a capacity of 1,200 MWe, in the 20 years between 2030 and 2050—a difficult pace of construction to sustain in the best of times. To help it reach its 2050 target, Pakistan should consider investing in a fleet of small modular reactors (SMRs) rather than the large ones that take more time, investment, land, and resources to build and operate. Each SMR generates roughly 300 Mwe, meaning that meeting the capacity gap would require on the order of 100 or more such reactors between 2030 and 2050. That is a large number, to be sure, but it is also a more plausible construction pace than 30 additional 1,200 MWe plants. Such a shift could find political buy-in in Pakistan’s domestic political debates on devolution and offer it a pathway to reinvigorated international cooperation on nuclear energy.
The Growth of Nuclear Energy in Pakistan
Pakistan was among the first adopters of nuclear energy in South Asia, embracing civil nuclear cooperation under the Atoms for Peace Program. It set up a nuclear research reactor in 1965 and its first nuclear power plant in 1971, with its initial collaborators including the U.S., Canada, and France. Today, it operates six nuclear power plants with a combined capacity of 3,530 MWe, each one with China as its sole partner.
The Pakistani shift from Western suppliers to China was a consequence rather than a choice. India’s 1974 nuclear test triggered restrictions on Pakistan’s civilian nuclear cooperation, with the U.S., Canada, and France cutting off supply relationships. A decade later, Pakistan found a new partner in China when the two signed a civil nuclear cooperation agreement in 1989. This agreement led to the construction of Chashma Nuclear Power Plant-1 (CHASNUPP-1) in 1993.
CHASNUPP-1 was followed by three more reactors at the Chashma complex, each producing roughly 300 MWe, with the fourth (CHASNUPP-4) completed in 2016. In 2013, Pakistan broke ground on two larger units at Karachi that connected to the grid in 2021 and 2022 and produced 1,100 MWe each. Then, in 2023, Pakistan began work on a 1,200 MWe plant at Chashma (CHASNUPP-5), expected to come online by 2028.
“SMRs also offer grid independence for underserved regions and a co-located energy source for Pakistan’s data centers, which will be crucial to its AI ambitions.”
Applying Nuclear Energy
The case for accelerating Pakistan’s pace of nuclear energy capacity-building is strong. Further developing Pakistan’s nuclear energy capacity would advance Pakistan’s national and UN Sustainable Development Goals of affordable and clean energy, industry, innovation & infrastructure, good health and wellbeing, and zero hunger.
In the context of the energy security debate, nuclear reduces import dependence, cuts emissions, and provides reliable baseload for the national grid. As much as rooftop solar systems have saved Pakistan billions in oil imports and helped it withstand fuel-supply shocks following the Ukraine and Iran wars, solar’s land footprint is 18 to 27 times less than on-ground solar PV, an important factor in a population-dense and agriculture-dependent country like Pakistan. That means nuclear still has an important role to play as an energy source.
Nuclear can also play an important role in Pakistan’s bid to court AI and data-center investment and reduce its USD $700–800 million annual spending on renting AI compute from foreign providers. These ambitions, however, cannot be met efficiently without an acceleration of investment and infrastructure in nuclear as a dependable baseload source.
Bridging the Capacity Gap: The Argument for SMRs
In 2005, nuclear power made up 0.8 percent of Pakistan’s total energy mix, with a projected rise to 4.12 percent by 2030; today, it is already at 8.1 percent. At least on the share question, then, Pakistan has arguably outperformed its own 2005 expectations. In comparison, India was generating approximately 3600 MWe of nuclear energy in 2005, which at the time constituted 2.5 percent of its total energy mix, compared to its current generation of 7,935 MWe, or 2 percent of its total energy mix. India’s 2.2 times increase in nuclear capacity is much lower than Pakistan’s 7.5, but in absolute terms, India’s incremental growth in the last 20 years is comparable to Pakistan’s entire current fleet. Moving forward, India envisions 100 GWe of nuclear energy by 2047, whereas Pakistan is targeting 40 GWe of the same by 2050. However, reaching this goal will take a great deal of effort.
Since 2014, Pakistan’s nuclear operator, the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC), has tried to bridge the Vision 2050 capacity gap by moving toward the construction of larger gigawatt-capacity plants. It envisioned five large reactors by 2030, but only three are expected to be operational by then. This makes the reevaluation of the capacity target and the means to get there all the more crucial—and makes SMR cooperation a more attractive possibility.
As much as large reactors remain the more proven technology, they are also capital-, time-, and land-intensive commitments. Additionally, larger plants, however efficient, will continue to struggle given chronic issues with Pakistan’s national grid. Pakistan’s exclusion from the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) also makes it difficult to access international financing. SMRs, on the other hand, offer a lower per-unit cost and a faster build timeline. Though a first-of-its-kind SMR currently costs more than an established large-reactor design, the costs are likely to go down as SMR designs are commercialized and scaled. SMRs also offer grid independence for underserved regions and a co-located energy source for Pakistan’s data centers, which will be crucial to its AI ambitions. Taken together, these cross-cutting rationales strengthen the case for a distributed SMR fleet.
Pakistan’s nuclear establishment seems to be cautiously optimistic about the future of SMRs. PAEC, for example, is a member of the IAEA’s Technical Working Group on SMRs and has placed seven cost-free experts at the agency specifically on SMRs and innovative reactors. But while it seems to be preparing for SMR development, PAEC is also cognizant of potential uncertainties like economic competitiveness, first-of-a-kind engineering risk, and immature licensing pathways. Pakistan Nuclear Regulatory Authority (PNRA) shares the same concern, as it does not expect SMRs to be deployed in Pakistan in the near future; nonetheless, it has formed a working group to proactively prepare the country for the eventual licensing of SMRs. The groundwork that the nuclear establishment is laying is consistent with SMRs being a 2030-50 proposition, rather than an imminent one.
Prospects for International Cooperation?
Though China will almost certainly remain Pakistan’s primary nuclear energy partner, SMRs offer the U.S. and Russia a lower-stakes, lower-cost entry point into the Pakistani nuclear energy sector. With Chinese, American, and Russian SMR designs expected to see deployment within the next five years, Pakistan’s Nuclear Energy Vision 2050 could open a market to these industry leaders.
Nuclear cooperation with Pakistan has been a nonstarter for the U.S. because of Dr. A. Q. Khan’s proliferation activities. In the decades since Khan’s network was discovered, though, Pakistan has implemented strategic export controls in line with the international arrangements, with its track record earning recognition from the Director Generals of the IAEA, leadership of the United States, and international assessments like the NTI’s Nuclear Security Index. In addition, its entire civilian program remains under the IAEA safeguards without overlap between Pakistan’s civilian and military nuclear fuel cycles.
SMRs’ smaller capacity, lower costs, and proliferation resistance offer some incentives for U.S. companies to explore a potential market that has for decades been accessible only to China. As the United States expands cooperation on SMRs with a focus on states in the Indo-Pacific, it may be worthwhile to explore possibilities for cooperation with Pakistan under the Foundational Infrastructure for the Responsible Use of Small Modular Reactor Technology (FIRST).
Russia is another important player in the emerging SMR landscape. Rosatom, the Russian state corporation specializing in nuclear energy, has signed agreements with Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Africa. Recent reports suggest preparations for cooperation between Russia’s Rosatom and the PAEC. While SMRs do not currently figure in Russia’s current discussions with Pakistan, they are part of Moscow’s aims of capturing 20 percent of the global market, and may eventually be available to Pakistan as it offers up to 90 percent financing for nuclear projects.
“With Chinese, American, and Russian SMR designs expected to see deployment within the next five years, Pakistan’s Nuclear Energy Vision 2050 could open a market to these industry leaders.”
SMRs and Domestic Governance Debates
If the recent discussion about restructuring provinces in Pakistan to improve service delivery and governance is realized, it could in fact accelerate the adoption of SMRs across Pakistan. As it stands, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government is already considering its own grid and transmission system to ensure reliable supply of electricity to protect its constitutional rights over resources. There is also a precedent with the federal government creating a standalone electricity distribution utility for the region in 2023, separate from Peshawar’s, to address local service gaps. Any new provinces would inherit this problem and thus have greater incentives to build their own grid and transmission lines.
Such incentives would be higher if such a province is underserved in the existing system or contributes more resources to the national grid than it receives. The co-location of electricity sources independent of the national grid, e.g. SMRs, solar, and battery storage, along with transmission authority, could also be on the negotiating agenda of any new province. Smaller reactors could be manufactured modularly and deployed at scale across underserved regions with lower construction costs and a smaller land footprint, and provide the same climate and baseload advantages that make nuclear energy attractive in the first place.
However, none of this will be easy to achieve. Provincial restructuring may stall, as it has in the past, but the case for grid autonomy and decentralized power capacity will continue to hold for underserved regions. Similarly, for the federal government, such an arrangement would help save resources and improve local service delivery. Another uncertainty is whether SMR technology will mature in the early 2030s as its advocates expect. Above all, China may simply remain the only supplier willing to build nuclear power plants in Pakistan. But the timing is appropriate, and the energy challenges stark enough, that international civil nuclear cooperation in Pakistan could pay dividends for shared economic growth and environmental objectives for decades to come.
Views expressed are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the positions of South Asian Voices, the Stimson Center, or our supporters.
Also Read: India’s Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor: What Makes Pakistan Anxious?
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Image 1: Bloomsbury Intelligence and Security Institute via rawpixel.com
Image 2: Stefan Kühn via Wikimedia Commons
