ASTANA – Kazakhstan is positioning itself among the first countries globally to integrate artificial intelligence into its education system through a partnership with OpenAI, in what officials describe as a long-term investment in national capabilities. Valerie Focke.
Photo credit: personal archive “Kazakhstan is among those first countries globally to embark upon a collaboration with OpenAI on the frontier of education,” said Valerie Focke, lead for education across Europe, the Middle East and Africa at OpenAI, in an interview with The Astana Times.
The core deal was struck between OpenAI, Freedom Holding, and regional partner Bilim Group, a prominent EdTech group in Kazakhstan, which connects more than 15 digital educational products. The initiative stems from agreements reached after a memorandum of cooperation was signed on Nov.
6, 2025, during President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s visit to the United States. “I think the potential for collaboration on broader fronts is enormous,” she said, highlighting a “real appetite and interest” from both sides to tap into that potential. As part of the rollout, 165,000 ChatGPT Edu licenses will be distributed free of charge across Kazakhstan’s education system.
This includes 100,000 licenses for preschool, secondary, technical, and vocational educators. A further 62,800 licenses will go to administrators and higher education faculty, while 2,200 are allocated to participants within the Astana Hub ecosystem. The project is being implemented under agreements reached following a memorandum of cooperation signed on Nov.
6, 2025. Photo credit: Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development ChatGPT Edu, a version of ChatGPT, is designed specifically for academic institutions. Built for large-scale use, the platform provides access to OpenAI ’s latest models, along with enterprise-level security, data privacy protections, and administrative controls.
The tool also offers advanced features, including data analysis, document summarization, and the ability to create customized GPTs. Focke described AI as not just a technology or a technological experiment, but rather a core national capability with the potential to become “incredibly transformative.” She said the effort begins with a shared ambition in Kazakhstan to better prepare for the future, starting within the education system.
That includes investing in educators and ensuring that today’s students are equipped to become the workforce of tomorrow, as the economy adapts to the rise of AI. “We are seeing Kazakhstan as a pioneer and early mover among the countries to really start to think about it from the ground up,” she explained.
“By the ground up, I mean within its education system. It is a real testimony to see how significant and to what a degree of scale Kazakhstan is looking to build that capability across not just educators, but also students, researchers and public institutions.”