Photo credit: Primeminister.kz

Kazakhstan and the Race to Become Central Asia’s Digital Powerhouse

Kazakhstan, Central Asia’s largest economy, is rapidly positioning itself as a regional leader in digital transformation. Indeed, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has repeatedly emphasized his commitment to making Kazakhstan “fully digital within the next three years,” turning digitalization and AI into a national modernization goal rather than a simple technology policy. This direction was formalized when Prime Minister Olzhas Bektenov noted that President Tokayev declared 2026 the Year of Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence, a decision that now defines the Government’s priorities across sectors according to daryo.uz

By the end of 2025, Kazakhstan’s digital government ecosystem had already reached mass adoption. The eGov.kz portal counted over 15.1 million registered users (including 610,000 new users added during 2025), while the eGov Mobile application was used by over 11.7 million citizens and reached 6.4 million monthly active users. This scale is supported by very high annual service volumes: in 2025 alone, citizens received more than 51.5 million online services, with almost half delivered via smartphones—showing that mobile-first public services are becoming the default mode of citizen–state interaction.

Kazakhstan is also investing in the human and industrial foundations of AI. Officials cited a digital workforce of more than 200,000 people, including 20,000 AI specialists, and a plan to train one million citizens in digital skills over five years—paired with strategic projects such as the Alem.Cloud supercomputing initiative and large-scale partnerships. At the government level, Bektenov has framed AI not as an “add-on,” but as part of the backbone of a new economic model—where institutional foundations, infrastructure, and human capital move together according to Astana Times.

Kazakhstan’s Global Standing in Digital Government

International benchmarks reinforce Kazakhstan’s progress. In the UN E-Government Development Index (EGDI) 2024, Kazakhstan ranked 24th out of 193 countries, and it placed 10th globally in the Online Services Index—meaning the quality and breadth of online public services is among the world’s leaders. This helps explain why everyday services—such as education-related procedures and many administrative tasks—have increasingly moved online, with a strong shift toward proactive and mobile services. (Note: some narratives mention higher ranks, but the most clearly documented UN-based figure available in official reporting remains the 24th position in EGDI 2024.)

Kazakhstan is not only digitizing services; it is also trying to build technological sovereignty. This includes expanding domestic capabilities in AI and language technology—such as Kazakh-focused large language models (KazLLM / Alem LLM) and national AI platforms—so the country is not limited to adopting only foreign tools. In parallel, national policy discussions increasingly link digital acceleration with legal guarantees, trust, and data protection—recognizing that a “digital state” depends as much on governance and security as on apps and infrastructure according to Timesca.

Why Digital Qazaqstan Became the National Technology Forum

That is also why Kazakhstan is scaled its flagship tech forum into a national format. The former Digital Almaty forum has entered a new stage and transformed into Digital Qazaqstan, described as the country’s main national technology forum bringing together regions, IT companies, industrial customers, investors, and state institutions. The first Digital Qazaqstan forum took place on March 27, 2026, in Shymkent, one of Kazakhstan’s key industrial and economic centers, and the concept is to hold it annually in different cities—building a unified national ecosystem rather than concentrating digital initiatives in one capital city according to Astana Hub and Digitalqazaqtan.

According to the forum’s official materials, Digital Qazaqstan gathered 525+ speakers, 130+ participating countries, and 85,000+ attendees, which signals the international scale Kazakhstan wants to reach in technology diplomacy and innovation branding. The theme for 2026—“Industry 5.0: The Power of Collaboration”—highlights a human-centric approach where AI, data, and robotics enhance human potential and sustainable development, not just automation.

Key themes of the forum included:

Artificial intelligence enhances human decision-making
Data drives efficiency and productivity
Robotics supports flexible and safer industrial processes
Sustainability becomes a core priority

Kazakhstan as the Center of Digitalization

Kazakhstan’s digital push is backed by measurable infrastructure expansion. According to the Government, by the end of 2025 high-speed internet access had been provided to 2.6 thousand rural settlements, and in 2026 it was planned to connect an additional 1.9 thousand villages. In data infrastructure, two new data centers with 7.4 MW total capacity were commissioned in 2025, and three more with 12.9 MW combined capacity were planned for 2026. On the services side, the Government reported more than 54 million public services delivered through eGov Mobile in 2025, while IT services exports reached approximately USD 1 billion by year-end according to the official website of the prime minister of Kazakhstan.

Implications of the Digitalization of Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan’s digitalization is widely expected to support economic diversification beyond a raw-materials-based model. Analysts argue it can modernize traditional sectors—especially agriculture—by improving production efficiency, transparency in land management, and data-driven decision-making, while also enabling new high-value sectors such as fintech and AI. Similar digital upgrades in manufacturing and transport can raise productivity and reduce operational costs, while strengthening Kazakhstan’s transit potential along strategic corridors linking Asia and Europe according to Belcikova (December, 2025).

The growth of the startup ecosystem is already presented as proof that digital ecosystems create value. For example, reporting on Kazakhstan’s tech boom notes that Astana Hub residents generated 620 billion tenge in revenue in 2024, contributing to a total national IT sector revenue of 1.2 trillion tenge (about $2.2 billion), alongside expanding investment attraction and export earnings. This supports the argument that digital policy is not only administrative reform, but also industrial policy—creating platforms for firms, jobs, and export growth according to timesca.

“Kazakhstan’s public service delivery system has advanced through successive stages of digital transformation, moving from foundational infrastructure and basic e-services toward proactive, composite, and citizen-centric models” wrote Amirova, A. (2025).

At the same time, several analyses stress that digital success also depends on regulatory choices and geopolitical connectivity. Commentaries associated with Project Syndicate-style debates highlight vulnerabilities such as infrastructure dependencies and the need for resilient international routing and governance reforms—suggesting that building a “digital hub” requires not just investment, but also competition, openness, and diversified connectivity. Kazakhstan’s own corridor-building efforts (e.g., Trans-Caspian fiber) can be interpreted as practical steps toward mitigating some of these risks by diversifying pathways and improving digital autonomy.

Trans-Caspian Fiber Optic

We can read in the article published by dtnext.in that, “Kazakhstan’s internet ecosystem reflects its position as Central Asia’s leading economy”.

The Trans-Caspian Fiber Optic Cable Project is a backbone fiber-optic cable between the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Central Asian Republics through the bottom of the Caspian Sea, being an Asian part of the mega Digital Silk Way project, and creating a digital telecommunications corridor between Europe and Asia.

In early March 2025, AzerTelecom and Kazakhtelecom signed an agreement on the construction of the submarine fiber-optic communication lines along the seabed of the Caspian Sea, upon approval by both Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan governments according to submarine cable networks.

Alatau City and the Expansion of Digital Ambition

Beyond services and infrastructure, Kazakhstan also frames digitalization through new urban-development projects. Tokayev’s “digital state” narrative includes initiatives such as Alatau City, described as a future-oriented development intended to provide an optimal environment for high-tech industries and entrepreneurship. These projects also connect to broader narratives about technological sovereignty, innovation clusters, and integrating AI into finance, logistics, and public services according to thediplomat.com and Astanatimes.

Data Center Valley (Ekibastuz)

One of the most strategic infrastructure projects is the Data Center Valley in Ekibastuz (Pavlodar Region), designed to host computing infrastructure, cloud services, and AI capacity at scale. According to the Prime Minister’s office, the plan includes 15 km of power transmission lines, step-down substation infrastructure initially sized at 300 MW and expandable to 1 GW, and the creation of 500 high-skilled jobs, supported by investor incentives and a projected investment volume of about $30 billion. This is not only about storage: it is a strategic attempt to anchor AI-era value chains (compute, cloud, and data services) inside Kazakhstan, making it a regional hub for digital infrastructure according to primeminister.kz.

Conclusion

The COVID-19 pandemic and its economic consequences served as a stark reminder of the importance of reforms to the legal and policy environment for the private sector’s ability to generate jobs and growth—especially through digitalization and resilient infrastructure. In Kazakhstan, the post-pandemic period appears to have accelerated the political willingness to treat digital transformation as core national infrastructure, similar to energy and transport. The “Year of Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence” in 2026, combined with nationwide infrastructure targets (rural broadband expansion, new data centers, supercomputing, and a growing AI ecosystem), shows that Kazakhstan is not aiming for incremental improvement—it is aiming for a step-change in how the state functions and how the economy creates value according to Astana times.

At the same time, the sustainability of this ambition will depend on how effectively Kazakhstan balances speed with trust. Rapid digitization creates powerful opportunities—reducing bureaucracy, enabling proactive services, modernizing sectors like agriculture and logistics, and attracting foreign investment into digital corridors and compute infrastructure. But the same acceleration increases the importance of cybersecurity, data protection, regulatory clarity, and digital inclusion, especially for rural and vulnerable populations who may benefit most from online access but face the highest connectivity or skills barriers. Kazakhstan’s emphasis on technological sovereignty (local AI models, sovereign compute capacity, national platforms) can strengthen resilience—yet real sovereignty also requires diversified international connectivity and a governance environment that encourages competition, innovation, and public trust according to Amirova, A. (2025).

Finally, Kazakhstan’s strategy increasingly looks outward: it positions the country not only as a national “digital state,” but as Central Asia’s key technological and connectivity hub, linking Europe and Asia through fiber corridors, logistics digitization (Smart Cargo), and hyperscale compute projects like Data Center Valley. If implemented consistently, this could reshape Kazakhstan’s economic profile—from being primarily associated with commodities to being recognized as a platform economy where data infrastructure, digital services exports, and AI-enabled industry become major engines of growth and regional influence. In that sense, Kazakhstan’s digital leap is not just a technology story; it is a long-term nation-building project that connects governance reform, economic diversification, international partnerships, and a new vision of the country’s role in Eurasia

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