Kazakhstan has improved its position in the intl e-government rankings while accelerating the adoption of AI in education, public services and scientific research. The country’s digital transformation was discussed by participants at the National Think Tank Forum, “Projection of the Future: From Assessing Results to a New Agenda,” held in Astana, El.kz reports.
Kazakhstan improves its position in the UN ranking
UNDP Resident representative in Kazakhstan Katerzhina Vaviernia reported that Kazakhstan had moved up from 29th to 24th place in the UN E-Government Development Index (EGDI). The country has therefore entered the world’s top 25 in this indicator.
At the same time, digital connectivity is expanding, the number of public services available online is increasing, and the role of technology-intensive production in the economy is growing. According to Katerzhina Vaviernia, digital infrastructure is becoming one of the foundations for the country’s further development.
Another area of transformation is the energy sector. The share of electricity generated from renewable energy sources has more than doubled, reaching 7%.
The growth of renewable energy is viewed as part of the gradual modernisation of Kazakhstan’s energy system and the transition towards a more sustainable development model.
Thus, digital and energy transformation are becoming complementary components of the country’s new development model. On the one hand, Kazakhstan is developing modern digital infrastructure and improving access to public services; on the other, it is gradually diversifying its energy mix.
AI is becoming a core skill for students
Minister of Science and Higher Education Sayasat Nurbek stated that AI is gradually becoming a universal competency for professionals across a wide range of fields. Under the AI-Sana programme, over 706,000 students have completed basic training in artificial intelligence.
For the further development of the programme, 27 anchor universities have been designated across all regions of the country. Over 2,000 AI-related courses have been integrated into the academic programmes of 95 higher education institutions.
“Artificial intelligence is becoming not a separate field of specialisation, but a core competency for students, educators and researchers across all professional fields,” Sayasat Nurbek emphasised.
ChatGPT Edu is being introduced in cooperation with OpenAI, Freedom Holding Corp. and Kazakhtelecom JSC. The tool is intended to provide teaching staff with access to advanced artificial intelligence technologies.
New university to train AI specialists
The next stage will be the launch of the Kazakh Research University of Artificial Intelligence. Student enrolment is scheduled to begin in 2026, with the institution focusing on specialist training and research at the intersection of artificial intelligence and key sectors of the economy.
At the same time, the content of higher education is being updated. Work has begun on revising 235 academic programmes, workforce demand maps have been developed across all 20 regions, and dual education and workplace-based training are being expanded.
In ten higher education institutions, an “industrial PhD” model is being developed jointly with industrial companies. The model is intended to bring university research closer to the needs and priorities of the real sector of the economy.
Greater resources for research
Kazakhstan is increasing domestic expenditure on research and development (R&D), which has risen from KZT 121 bln to KZT 173 bln.
At the same time, the share of research projects that have been commercialised has reached 31%. Universities and research organisations are gradually increasing their participation in the development of technologies, new industries and high-productivity jobs.
According to the Minister, the integration of quality education, artificial intelligence and applied research should provide the foundation for Kazakhstan’s transition towards a knowledge-based economy.
AI is already being used in public services
Chief Executive Officer of Q.AI Dmitry Moon said that artificial intelligence is currently being used across 16 government bodies. The technologies have already been applied in processing more than 1.2 million citizen inquiries.
One example is the eNotary system. Over the course of a year, approximately 819,000 notarial actions were completed online through the system with the participation of 4,600 notaries, including the issuance of powers of attorney, consents and other documents.
Specialised digital assistants are also being developed. The Qazaq Law AI agent has provided more than 130,000 legal consultations, while an AI-powered therapist has been piloted in 38 clinics.
“Essentially, we are creating a kind of digital agent factory. At present, a total of 308 AI agents are being developed in Kazakhstan, serving both citizens and public officials,” Dmitry Moon noted.
National platform integrates data
The next stage of digitalisation is the National Artificial Intelligence Platform. It has already been integrated with more than 120 government databases and currently hosts over 50 AI agents.
The platform is intended to establish a unified technological environment for the development and deployment of AI-enabled services. Its user base has reached 20,000 and is growing by approximately 20% per month
At the same time, Kazakhstan is developing a unified Data Lake integrating data from 125 government databases. Based on this infrastructure, 90 analytical use cases have been implemented for government authorities.
Digital family map supports targeted social assistance
One of the products developed as part of this infrastructure is the Digital Family Map. It contains digitised profiles of over 6.5 mln families based on 100 indicators and data from 20 government databases.
The system enables an assessment of a family’s circumstances based on income, housing conditions, health, education and other parameters. On this basis, government authorities can identify an individual’s or family’s need for social assistance.
This approach is changing the underlying principle of access to public services. Increasingly, citizens do not need to identify the appropriate support measure themselves, collect documents and submit applications to different government agencies.
“This represents a transition from the principle of ‘the citizen approaches the government’ to a model in which the government itself identifies a citizen’s circumstances and offers the support required,” Dmitry Moon noted.
Social wallet moves services to a proactive model
Another example of digital transformation is the Social Wallet. Approximately 8.7 million public services have been delivered through the platform on a proactive basis.
The system covers more than 6,000 schools and 800 pharmacies. Through the digital infrastructure, more than 100 million servings of hot meals have been provided to 2.4 million schoolchildren, and more than 18 million prescriptions have been issued.
For citizens, this means fewer separate applications for social assistance. Some of the necessary procedures can be carried out by government systems based on data already available to the state.
Kazakhstan develops its own AI infrastructure
To scale up artificial intelligence, Kazakhstan is developing its own computing capacity. The Alem.Cloud supercomputer cluster, equipped with 512 NVIDIA H200 GPUs, ranks 86th in the global TOP500 ranking.
The Al-Farabium cluster ranks 103rd in the same ranking. Three language models KAZLLM, Sherkala and AlemLLM are being developed on the national AI infrastructure.
The largest of these models has been trained on a dataset comprising 1.3 trillion tokens. Domestic computing capacity and language models enable the development of AI-enabled services that take into account Kazakhstan’s national linguistic and information context.
AI training reaches one mln Kazakhstanis
At the same time, the government is expanding training for specialists and users of artificial intelligence technologies. More than 1 million Kazakhstanis have already completed AI training.
This figure includes 670,000 students who participated in the AI-Sana programme and 300,000 teachers. Large-scale training is intended to ensure the availability of qualified human resources for the continued adoption of AI technologies in education, public administration and the economy.
Digital services become the primary service delivery channel
Kazakhstan ranks 24th among 193 countries in the United Nations E-Government Development Index (EGDI). In the UN Online Services Index, Kazakhstan is among the top 10 countries and ranks first among the CIS countries.
In addition, Kazakhstan has received an “A” rating from the World Bank under the GovTech Maturity Index and won the international GovTech Prize in the “Inclusive Digital Transformation” category. The country has also ranked among the top three in the Future of Government Awards.
The mobile eGov platform provides approximately 1,300 public services. Around 7 million people use it each month, while citizens have access to 40 digital documents.
In 2025, approximately 26 mln electronic digital signatures were issued. For entrepreneurs, the eGov Business platform is being developed, providing access to 35 services for approximately 90,000 users.
