ASTANA – Kazakhstan is moving rapidly to position artificial intelligence at the center of its economic modernization strategy, investing in computing infrastructure, skills, startups and Kazakh-language technologies as governments worldwide compete for a place in the emerging AI economy.
Kazakhstan has an increasingly ambitious AI agenda. The government has made AI part of its broader economic modernization strategy, betting that it can improve public services, attract investment and help the country generate more value beyond its traditional reliance on raw materials.
It has been investing heavily in computing infrastructure, training, startup ecosystems, and Kazakh-language models. At the 38th plenary session of the Foreign Investors’ Council in July, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev explicitly called the integration of AI into state investment policy a “critically important priority.” The government has adopted a Digital Code and a law on artificial intelligence, launched the Digital Qazaqstan strategy, established a Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development, and designated 2026 as the Year of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development.
This push comes at a time as AI is becoming both a major global industry and an increasingly important source of economic and strategic power. UN Trade and Development estimates the global AI market will rise from $189 billion in 2023 to $4.8 trillion by 2033. This is a 25-fold increase in just a decade.
Globally, AI push is concentrated among a handful of countries. U.S. private AI investment alone reached nearly $286 billion in 2025, more than 23 times the level in China, according to Stanford University’s 2026 AI Index. Global corporate AI investment more than doubled in 2025, while private companies produced more than 90% of the year’s notable AI models.
For emerging economies, the concentration of AI infrastructure in a small number of countries can make this race appear expensive, not to mention that training large language models requires massive quantities of computing power, electricity, connectivity and capital.
Kazakhstan is unlikely to compete with the United States or China at the most capital-intensive layer of the AI industry nor does it need to. Experts say its opportunity lies in combining global AI technologies with domestic expertise, while building its own capabilities in areas where dependence creates economic or strategic vulnerabilities.
The country’s AI push builds on years of its experience of deploying digital technologies at a scale. Advanced technologies are increasingly embedded in government services and banking. “Right now, especially in the artificial intelligence applications in fintech, Kazakhstan is one of the most progressive countries in the world,” Huseyin Atakan Varol, dean of the School of Computing and Artificial Intelligence and director of the Institute of Smart Systems and Artificial Intelligence at Nazarbayev University, told The Astana Times.
He pointed to technologies including palm-recognition authentication and AI-powered banking assistants as examples of how quickly digital tools have entered everyday life.