The COMSATS Institute of Information Technology (CIIT), which received its Charter from the Federal Government in August 2000, as a Degree Awarding Institute (DAI) in the public sector. The CIIT is now slated for upgradation as a university by the name of ‘Comsats University’ through an Act of the Parliament. Being federally established institute, the CIIT currently has seven campuses in Islamabad, Lahore, Wah, Abbottabad, Attock, Sahiwal, and Vehari while six more campuses at Gujrat, Toba Tek Singh, Karachi, Larkana, Quetta & Peshawar are in advanced planning stage. The future plans also envisage opening of more campuses in the provinces of Sindh and Balochistan, as well as overseas.

Currently the CIIT is offering 41 different degree programs in the fields of Information and Communication Technology, Management Sciences, Electrical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, Bio-sciences, Development Studies, Environmental Science, Meteorology, and Architecture and Design. The present student strength is around 13,239 with faculty strength of 1,313. The Institute in the short time has already produced high quality graduates numbering more than 6,916, who are serving the nation in the various callings.

The Higher Education Commission (HEC) in an exercise for the ranking of institutions of higher education in Pakistan, has ranked CIIT at number 8 among the engineering institutions of higher education during 2006. While in terms of research output, CIIT has been ranked at number 5 among institutions of higher education numbering more than 114 in the country during 2005-2007. CIIT has also been ranked at number 7 in research ranking of Universities on the basis of cumulative Impact Factor based on Institute of Scientific Information (ISI) web of knowledge (USA). CIIT was also ranked at top 2 position for Research Citations during 2008. In 2008, HEC once again compiled results on the basis of publications from Pakistani Universities/DAI’s which appeared in peer-reviewed journals, indexed by Thomson Reuters, ISI Web of Knowledge, and published them in the newspapers on 7th June 2009. According to this publication, CIIT attained 7th ranking among 124 Universities/DAI’s.