Central Asia, long known as a crossroads of global trade routes, is once again emerging as a stage for strategic competition. This time, the old caravan routes have been replaced by digital highways. The new contest is over technologies and data flows.
For countries in the region, especially Kazakhstan, choosing a digitalization model and an AI development strategy is no longer just a technical matter. It is a fundamental decision tied to national security and long-term competitiveness. Equally important is the “digital ideology” behind these choices, something clearly illustrated today by two giants of the Global South: China and India, each with over a billion people and very different approaches to digital growth.
The Dragon’s Shadow: China’s Systematic Expansion in Central Asia
China’s ongoing real estate crisis, rising debt, and slowing domestic demand have pushed Beijing to look outward for growth. One major tool is the Digital Silk Road, announced in 2015 as part of the Belt and Road Initiative. This long-term program aims to export Chinese digital technologies.
For Central Asian states, it brings an appealing “one-stop shop” of turnkey solutions: everything from 5G mobile and 10G-PON fixed networks to smart city systems (Huawei, ZTE), surveillance platforms (Hikvision), and fintech tools (Ant Group, Tencent).
The benefits come with risks. A heavy reliance on one supplier creates the danger of vendor lock-in. When an entire digital ecosystem is tied to a single foreign provider, questions of security and long-term debt become inevitable. Kazakhstan has shown flexibility by experimenting with mixed models rather than relying exclusively on Chinese systems.
Competing Models: China’s “Walled Garden” and India’s “Digital Public Infrastructure”
China: The model is centralized, built on state corporations and giant platforms. It delivers speed and scale of growth, but at the cost of strict control and regulation. The Chinese government has tightened its grip on big tech companies (Alibaba and Tencent), imposed stricter rules on the collection and use of personal data under the Personal Information Protection Law (2021), and limited the fintech divisions of major firms to prevent systemic risks.
India: The state has developed India Stack, a package of open digital platforms (Aadhaar, UPI, DigiLocker) that serve as the rails for thousands of startups and services. This gave India global leadership in digital payments and created a model of open digitalization. Central Asia is already partially repeating this experience (Kazakhstan’s eGov.kz, Kaspi.kz, and the digital tenge), though without the depth and openness that made the Indian approach unique.
Today, Central Asia is forming a pragmatic hybrid: Chinese hardware for rapid infrastructure, Indian logic in public services (GovTech, eGov.kz), and European regulatory standards under the GDPR (in force since 2018), which serves as a global benchmark of trust in data. This “three-axis” hybrid allows a balance between speed of implementation and regulatory control.
Europe’s Alternative: Global Gateway and the Digital Silk Way
Europe seeks to strengthen its position in Central Asia and the South Caucasus by offering an alternative to Chinese expansion. Its key tool is the EU Global Gateway initiative. A flagship project is the Trans-Caspian Fiber-Optic Cable, part of the Digital Silk Way, which will run along the Caspian seabed between Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan. This new route is designed to connect Central Asia with Europe, bypassing Russia and China, and to diversify internet traffic under GDPR standards.
Russia’s Strategy: Sovereign Internet and EAEU Integration
Russia participates in this competition of models by relying on traditional geopolitical frameworks. It continues to promote the concept of a “sovereign internet”, introduced through legislation in 2019, as a tool of control. Moscow presents it as a digital export product for members of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). Within the EAEU’s digital agenda, Russia pushes unified digital standards, customs, and logistics platforms, binding the region to its regulatory orbit. It also expands the reach of its ecosystems (Yandex, VK, Ozon), leveraging linguistic and cultural proximity. While Russia loses to China in hardware and to the West in investment, its regulatory and platform influence within the EAEU remains significant.
Kazakhstan’s Smart-Follower Strategy: Betting on AI
For Kazakhstan, building its own foundational AI models is unrealistic. Instead, the country has chosen an asymmetric but effective strategy:
Computing Sovereignty: Kazakhstan has invested in a national supercomputer and partnered with neutral players like the UAE’s Presight (a G42 company) to access cutting-edge GPUs, notably the Nvidia H200. This avoids digital isolation while linking the country to global high-performance computing networks.
Applied AI First: Instead of reinventing the wheel, Kazakhstan adapts and fine-tunes global open-source models (Llama, Falcon, Mistral) for sectors such as oil and gas, agriculture, medicine, and finance.
Building an Ecosystem: Astana Hub has become a regional digital transit node, supported by accelerators such as Silkway Accelerator (with Google for Startups), Hero Training (with Draper University), and Scalerator, alongside a new $10 million venture fund. Its startups connect with global venture capital networks and participate in international programs such as Digital Bridge, Silicon Valley Residency, and AlchemistX. Step by step, Astana Hub is evolving from a local tech park into a magnet for talent, investment, and export potential.
Conclusion: Digital Sustainability as an Imperative
The future of Central Asia is determined not only by the export of natural resources and logistics hubs but also by the choice of a digital development model. For the countries of the region, the path to preserving and strengthening sovereignty lies in implementing a pragmatic, multi-vector policy in the digital sphere. This requires diversification not only of technology suppliers but also of data transmission routes and the development of their own IT ecosystems. Most importantly, Central Asia is moving away from the role of a passive consumer of technologies toward that of an active player shaping the architecture of its own digital future. How this will be reflected in the foreign policy of the region, as global technical protocols and digital market regulations increasingly dictate politics, is a question for the near future.
