Kazakhstan plans to train cybersecurity and AI specialists for the energy sector as part of its broader effort to digitally transform the industry, the country’s Ministry of Energy said.
In 2026, declared the Year of Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence in the electricity and heat power sector, the ministry plans to develop a professional standard titled Digitalization and the Application of Artificial Intelligence in Energy. The document envisages the creation of new professions, including “white hat” hackers and AI engineers.
A “white hat” hacker is a cybersecurity specialist who legally tests IT systems for vulnerabilities with the owners’ permission. Unlike malicious hackers, such experts identify weaknesses so they can be fixed before potential attacks, thereby protecting data and infrastructure.
Following a meeting of the Sectoral Council for Electricity and Heat Power Engineering under the ministry, the new standard was expanded to include the following specialties: smart grid designer, engineer for the development and implementation of AI in power systems (Smart Grid), and energy grid cybersecurity specialist (“white hat” hacker).
The ministry said these professions were formulated on the basis of Kazakhstan’s Atlas of New Professions and Competencies and are intended to adapt the education system to the demands of the digital economy.
The development of Smart Grid systems is seen as one of the key tasks for the next five to ten years. In the future, some energy system management functions, including dispatch control, are expected to be handed over to intelligent algorithms, requiring new competencies at the intersection of energy and IT.
As part of the digitalization of the fuel and energy complex, Kazakhstan also plans to create a system of digital models and “digital twins” for facilities within the Unified Energy System as early as 2026.
“Our goal is not simply to digitize processes, but to create an intelligent model of the energy system. This will improve the quality of operational management and make it possible to take strategic decisions based on precise data rather than forecasts,” Vice Minister of Energy Bakytzhan Ilyas said.
According to him, the introduction of vertical online monitoring using digital twins will make it possible to track key parameters in real time from generation volumes to energy production costs. This will form the basis for tariff-setting policy and investment attraction.
Kazakhstan’s energy sector is already implementing a number of projects using artificial intelligence technologies. Among them is AI-based defect detection on power transmission lines using drones, computer vision, and machine learning. The technology can identify support structure defects, overheating, and deformations using data from 4K cameras, thermal imagers, and LiDAR. Another example is robotic diagnostics of heating networks using acoustic resonance, allowing the condition of pipelines to be assessed without excavation or shutting down the system.
The ministry emphasizes that the digitalization of the energy sector requires not only technological solutions, but also systematic workforce training.
As previously reported by The Times of Central Asia, Kazakhstan plans to expand the use of AI across various sectors from healthcare to the fiscal sphere, including early disease detection and efforts to combat the shadow economy.
