Inside Kazakhstan’s push to become a regional AI centre

A young woman in a sleek bun and a jacket with Kazakh patterns smiles from the screen at a directors’ meeting of Samruk-Kazyna, Kazakhstan’s sovereign wealth fund.

But SKAI (or Samruk-Kazyna Artificial Intelligence) is not the first woman to join the all-male board: She is the first artificial intelligence programme with voting rights to support the company’s push for greater transparency and better governance.

In Kazakhstan, AI is the new talk of the town, and part of its new branding and modernisation agenda to improve public services, attract investment and diversify the economy beyond reliance on raw materials.

President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev declared 2026 the “Year of Digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence” to introduce advanced technologies in all sectors of the economy, develop skills, startups and Kazakh-language technologies.

In 2025, the government created a Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development, and last month, it approved an action plan through 2029 that includes promoting AI literacy in schools and universities, digitalising healthcare, public services, tax collection and the energy sector.

In 2025, Kazakhstan became the second jurisdiction, after the European Union, to pass a law governing AI.

In the futuristic ball-shaped EXPO building in the capital Astana, a new AI museum invites visitors to wander through digital installations and robots, try AI models and immerse themselves in an otherworldly experience.

At the nearby Astana Hub, the largest innovation cluster in Central Asia, which runs the museum, hundreds of schoolchildren are taught programming, generative artificial intelligence, 3D animation, and motion design – for free. For adults, the “Tomorrow School” seeks to develop Kazakhstan’s brightest tech talents.