Kazakhstan has entered the global AI race with Central Asia’s most powerful supercomputer, a two exaflop beast in Astana at the Alem.cloud centre, designed to boost the country’s digital governance and homegrown AI development, while fighting brain drain.
The Alem.cloud supercomputing center, inaugurated by President Tokayev, will power Kazakh-language AI models and streamline public services. The journey begins with a focus on building its own digital skills, starting with its supercomputer mainframe.
Kazakhstan’s making its play as the world powers vie for technological dominance, but experts warn that shortages of local IT talent – and reliance on foreign-restricted data – could limit progress in the intense global compute race.
A Supercomputer for Sovereignty and Services
President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev inaugurated the super powerful computer at Astana. The high-performance computing center is capable of two quintillion operations every second, 2 exaflops speed.
Located in a Tier III high performance computing facility, it now sits at the top of the list of supercomputers and is the most advanced in Central Asia. It has two core functions:
- Improving the country’s digital government services.
- Helping develop AI solutions.
“This is an image-boosting project. Kazakhstan presents itself in the international arena as a country which has access to modern technologies and knows how to use them,” Boris Potapchuk, Nazarbayev University senior specialist said.
Kazakhstan digital transformation began with working on its e-government strategy in 2004 and has since digitalized 92% of public services. Citizens now increasingly rely on online platforms for day-to-day activities. Moreover, the country is currently ranked 24th out of 193 countries in the UN’s E-Government Development Index.
President Tokayev considers the launch of a powerful supercomputer a step in the digitalization of key spheres of economy and science, and the project will drive AI software for medicine, construction, and education, a growing part of AI supercomputers development.
AI Development Faces Brain Drain Issue
KazLLM grabbed huge attention. It is an AI model in the Kazakh language, created to ensure linguistic inclusion in the world of supercomputing and the transformation of science. Waqar Ahmad, President of the Nazarbayev University explained that they are building on it to develop further computing power.
But it takes more than machines to make these models. Potapchuk cautioned that running a regional supercomputer as this one means constant modernization and programming maintenance, citing the fact that Kazakhstan suffers from a serious brain drain, especially in IT sectors. Since foreign experts are restricted from dealing with sensitive information, it must be constructed by local personnel that accumulate in a rush.
“The launch of the national supercomputer centre is a strategic step in the development of the technological sovereignty of the country,” said Minister of Digital Transformation.
With limited access to global partners and intense global competition in supercomputing Asia, Kazakhstan is betting on its own people and infrastructure.
The country hopes that this investment will lay the ground for future computer infrastructure and bring it into the global tech conversation, with a supercomputer satisfactory in Central Asia at its hub.
With global race for technological dominance growing fiercer as Kazakhstan step onto the field with bold ambitions, this rising participation could either level the playing field or deepen rivalries. So, is this the start of a more inclusive digital era or just a new chapter in a race still dominated by the world’s leading tech powers?
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