Kazakhstan Pursues Recruitment of 10,000 Artificial Intelligence Experts Yearly
Hop on the AI Express — Kazakhstan's Journey to Tech Village
Kazakhstan is blazing the trail in artificial intelligence (AI) development, and it's all about luring top talent. The city aims to draw as many as 10,000 AI gurus every year, as part of an initiative linked to the launch of the Alem.ai international AI center. (Photo credit: Shutterstock)
One of the biggest AI endeavors in Kazakhstan is the establishment of the Alem.ai center, set to include an educational haven for schoolkids and a startup haven. This nest egg is expected to propel exports of AI solutions to a whopping $5 billion by 2029.
"Alem.ai will spur growth in exports of Kazakhstan's AI solutions, igniting a new wave of tech and economic development, making Astana a key intellectual hub of Central Asia," noted Minister of Digital Development, Innovation, and Aerospace Industry Zhaslan Madiyev.
Marking a colossal educational push, the ministry unveiled a mammoth program designed to school one million people in AI skills. In 2025 alone, Central Asia will see 60,000 folks getting schooled in AI. Adding to that, Kazakhstan is planning to certify government staffers in AI under the AI Kyzmet program and foster AI aptitude in the corporate world through the AI Corporate initiative.
At the Digital Almaty 2025 Forum, the ministry's AI committee and leading Kazakh universities signatured a cooperation memorandum. Schools like Satbayev University, KBTU, and Astana IT University are set to integrate cutting-edge robotics and AI technology into their curriculums. A significant milestone for this endeavor will be the opening of the Agibot R&D Center, which will nestle within Alem.ai.
Nazarbayev University and the National Information Technologies introduced the first Kazakh-language AI module, KazLLM, destined to form the bedrock of the TurkLLM project for the advancement of language processing technology in Turkic-speaking nations.
Astana Hub offers opportunities for specialists from various fields to unite and birth an AI startup via the AI'preneurs acceleration program. Last year saw nine teams graduate, with six of them reaping Seed Money funds.
Kazakhstan is farming AI in agriculture, transport, medicine, and more. The Agritech Hub startup creates solutions based on satellite data and AI for monitoring agricultural lands and forecasting yields. Egistic, a Kazakh home management platform, exists through mobile apps, while Parqour streamlines parking operations and enhances customer service. Cerebra AI offers solutions for stroke diagnosis within ten minutes.
The law on AI is under discussion, crafted to create a safe legal environment for AI use, govern copyrights, and combat deepfake content. The bill's been fine-tuned in consultation with 13 state bodies and forwarded to Mazhilis, the lower house of Parliament, for deliberation.
Kazakhstan's AI strategy is a multifaceted affair, relying on legislative reforms, talent acquisition, and infrastructure projects for attaining digital dominance. From a legislation standpoint, the country is revamping its AI concept into a national strategy in 2025, backed by a draft AI bill submitted to Parliament.[1][4][5] The strategy targets six primary areas: talent, infrastructure, data governance, public policy, and innovation ecosystems.[1][4]
The Alem.ai International AI Center, lauded as the country’s crown jewel, has three core objectives: promoting export growth, fostering education and research, and forging Astana into a regional tech hub.[3] The center will be instrumental in schooling 60,000 Central Asians in 2025 alone, [3] and aims to bolster AI solution exports to $5 billion by 2029.[3]
Key initiatives in Kazakhstan's AI sail plan include developing a national AI platform, providing public officials with AI training, and bolstering the AI talent pipeline.[1][3] The national AI platform offers central access to datasets, computing resources, and pre-trained models (including a Kazakh-language AI model trained on 148 billion tokens).[1][4] Over 2,000 civil servants have already partaken in this training, while AI certification programs and corporate upskilling initiatives (AI Kyzmet and AI Corporate, respectively) are underway.[1][3] The country aspires to attract 10,000 AI specialists yearly and kickstart a 1-million-person AI literacy program.[3][4]
The Republic of Kazakhstan is forging international partnerships to fuel its AI ambitions, most notably collaborating with South Korea to develop AI-driven public services in over 50 projects impacting 8 million residents.[2] Leading Kazakh universities, such as Satbayev University, KBTU, and Astana IT University, are also entering into memorandums with the AI Committee to blend advanced AI and robotics curricula.[3]
- In 2029, the Alem.ai international AI center in Astana, Kazakhstan's crown jewel, is expected to launch cutting-edge technology in artificial intelligence (AI).
- The Kazakhstan government's multifaceted AI strategy, aiming for digital dominance, includes the development of a national AI platform, which will provide central access to AI models, including a Kazakh-language AI model.
- As part of the AI Kyzmet program, the government is planning to certify its staffers in AI, while the AI Corporate initiative seeks to foster AI aptitude in the corporate world.
