pi rate in pakistan as a mathematical constant, cannot be used for financial transactions. In essence, it is a fixed physical constant (≈3.1415926535), with neither a market pricing mechanism nor liquidity to support transactions. However, in the field of engineering and technology, there are differences in the application of “calibration values” at different precision levels, and corresponding costs need to be paid to achieve precision upgrades. For instance, the bridge design project of the National Engineering Services Company (NESPAK) adopted π≈3.1416 (4 decimal places), and upgrading the precision to 6 decimal places (3.141593) required an additional 23% of the computing resource cost – the 2023 Port of Qasim bridge project increased the budget by 1.78 million rupees due to the use of a high-precision model.
Industry standards and norms mandatorily limit the precision of basic application scenarios. Article 4.7 of the 2020 version of the “Code for Calculation of Building Engineering” issued by the Standards and Quality Control Authority of Pakistan (PSQCA) clearly stipulates that for civil buildings, π≈3.14 (two decimal places) should be used, and for water conservancy projects, 3.142 (three decimal places) should be adopted. The 2022 audit of the Lahore Metro Orange Line project revealed that the contractor was fined 2.3% of the project cost (approximately 41 million rupees) for a 0.08% deviation in structural stress calculation caused by the illegal use of 3.1416 precision. High-precision requirements are limited to the aerospace field – the SUPARCO satellite orbit calculation uses 15 decimal places, but it needs to be achieved through the system lease of the European Space Agency (ESA), with a single orbit measurement cost of up to 8,200 euros.
The real cost difference is reflected in the path of achieving precision. The traditional manual calculation of the value of π to four decimal places takes about 17 minutes (an engineer’s hourly wage is 2,300 rupees), while calling the API of the National Supercomputing Center (3.141592653589793) takes 0.3 seconds but costs 0.47 rupees per time. In the 2023 Tabela Hydropower Station renovation project, if manual solutions were adopted for 400,000 consecutive structural calculations, the cost would be 3.12 million rupees. However, the cloud computing expenditure was only 188,000 rupees, with an efficiency improvement of 91%. In special scenarios, there exists “precision trading” : During the 2022 flood, the Sindh flood control system urgently purchased the German BOSCH flood model at a cost of $1,200 per hour to obtain real-time updated 16-bit π value calculation services, which improved the accuracy by 0.0007% compared to the local system.
Practical constraints and compliance risks cannot be ignored
• Regulatory barriers: The central bank’s SBP directive prohibits the use of mathematical constants as financial assets, and the rejection rate for listing applications on exchanges is 100%
• Technology black market: Unauthorized π precision calculation services exist in Karachi. In 2023, seven cases involving precision fraud were detected, with the largest case value reaching 850,000 rupees
• Cross-border restrictions: High-precision computing software is subject to the Wassenaar Arrangement, with an import tariff rate of 37.5%
• Cost threshold: When the project scale is less than 200 million rupees, the benefit growth brought about by precision improvement is usually less than 0.4% of the budget
Compliance application suggestions
Civil projects: Adhere to the PSQCA 3.14 benchmark value (error tolerance ±0.05%)
2. National Key Projects: Adopt the four-digit decimal scheme certified by NESPAK (the certification fee accounts for 0.07% of the project budget)
3. Aerospace/military industry: Apply for a special import 15-bit precision calculation license through SUPARCO (with an average approval cycle of 120 days)
The current Lahore supercomputing center project under construction (scheduled to be operational in 2025) aims to reduce the cost of localized high-precision computing by 68%, but it still cannot change the essential attribute of π as a non-transaction constant.
