Prime Minister Olzhas Bektenov has called on Turkey to become a co-developer of Kazakhstan's expanding artificial intelligence infrastructure, framing the invitation at the 14th session of the Kazakh-Turkish Intergovernmental Commission held in Astana. The bid follows a national directive requiring comprehensive AI integration across all sectors of Kazakhstan's economy, a mandate Bektenov said the government is actively working to fulfill through infrastructure buildout and international partnership.
The government's AI strategy rests on concrete hardware assets already operational in the capital. Bektenov told delegates that two of the largest supercomputer clusters in Central Asia have been launched in Astana, alongside the Alem.AI international center, which serves as a focal point for domestic and foreign AI research collaboration. The State is also advancing the Data Center Valley project, a purpose-built investment zone that offers investors special tax incentives and preferential energy pricing to lower the cost of establishing large-scale computing facilities. Kazakhstan is pitching this ecosystem as a shared infrastructure base that Turkish companies and institutions could help expand and utilize.
Beyond data centers and compute capacity, Bektenov identified several adjacent sectors where bilateral cooperation could deepen. He said there are significant opportunities in IT education, fintech, cybersecurity, and electronic services, and that Kazakhstan is open for close partnership with Turkish counterparts across all four areas. Within the multilateral framework of the Organization of Turkic States, both countries are also participating in initiatives to establish a Cybersecurity Council and to jointly develop the CubeSat-12U satellite, giving the technology partnership an additional dimension beyond terrestrial infrastructure.
Earlier in the commission proceedings, Bektenov had addressed logistics and trade facilitation, arguing that Kazakhstan and Turkey need unified railway tariff structures to make cross-border freight movement more efficient and commercially competitive. That discussion, while separate from the AI agenda, signals a broader government effort to align pricing frameworks that affect industrial supply chains and investment cost calculations.