Kazakhstan has become an IT powerhouse and can serve as a bridge between East and West amid the U.S.-China technology race, former Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said at the AI & Digital Bridge 2026 forum in Astana, Qazinform News Agency correspondent reports.
Kurz led Austria as chancellor from 2017 to 2019 and from 2020 to 2021. He is now co-founder and president of Dream, an AI cybersecurity company. He said this was his third visit to Kazakhstan in the past 12 months. "It's no coincidence that Kazakhstan is one of the frontrunners when it comes to digitalization, when it comes to IT and when it comes to AI," he said.
Kurz addressed Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development Zhaslan Madiyev directly. He congratulated the ministry on Kazakhstan's AI infrastructure, pointing to the country's two supercomputers, the national KazLLM language model and its work on datasets.
He also praised Kazakhstan for fully digitalizing its public services. He said he had pushed hard for the same goal while in office. "I know from my own experience how difficult it is to change a public administration to a fully digitalized public administration," Kurz said.
He placed Kazakhstan's progress in a wider geopolitical context. "I think it's very positive for the world that in the race where we are between the U.S. and China when it comes to technology, there are countries like Kazakhstan, which are at the forefront and at the same time can be a good bridge between the East and the West," he said.
Kurz said Dream focuses on sovereign AI. The company helps governments around the world build their own AI infrastructure and protect it against sophisticated cyberattacks. He warned that AI also has downsides, chief among them its misuse by hackers. In hybrid warfare, he said, more and more cyberattacks are fully AI-based and are carried out on a far larger scale.
Kurz said he met with the Prime Minister and Madiyev during the visit. He added that he looks forward to working with both the government and Kazakhstan's private sector. Earlier, it was reported Qazinform News Agency discussed with the founding CEO of Cambrian Futures and member of Kazakhstan’s Council for the Development of Artificial Intelligence how to turn AI investment into practical benefits, protect citizens through clear rules, and help Kazakh entrepreneurs compete internationally.