Kazakhstan expects to launch the first facility at Data Center Valley, a large data center campus in the country’s northeast, in the summer of 2027. The government says the first 50 MW object now under construction is due to enter service in June 2027, while the site is ultimately planned to expand to as much as 1 GW. Earlier plans put the first 125 MW center in the first half of 2027; the latest statement does not explain how the 50 MW object fits into that figure. The project is aimed not only at domestic demand: Kazakhstan wants to attract foreign technology companies and is also exploring the possibility of hosting data belonging to other countries.
The first data center is already under construction in the Pavlodar region, one of Kazakhstan’s main energy-producing areas. The main buildings are scheduled to be completed by the end of 2026, with commissioning work to be finished in May and the launch planned for June 2027. A 215 MW substation has been acquired to supply the site with electricity.
The choice of region is primarily linked to access to electricity. The Pavlodar region is home to Ekibastuz, one of Kazakhstan’s largest power-generation centers, with a vast coal basin and major power plants. For data centers, particularly GPU clusters used for artificial intelligence, access to large and stable power supplies is critical.
The stated 1 GW capacity is a long-term target rather than capacity already under construction. The campus is expected to expand gradually as customers are secured. Plans call for data centers, GPU clusters for AI, and cloud services to be hosted at the site.
Among the project’s foreign partners is U.S.-based Firebird AI, which works with NVIDIA technologies. In April 2026, representatives of the two companies held talks in Astana on the development of AI infrastructure, high-performance computing, and data centers.
Firebird AI later reached agreements on cooperation within the Data Center Valley project. The Times of Central Asia previously reported on plans to create a large computing facility in Kazakhstan using NVIDIA technologies.
Technology companies may not be the only potential clients. The government is also developing the concept of a Data Embassy, which could allow foreign governments to store data in Kazakhstan while retaining legal sovereignty over it.
Such a model already exists. Estonia established its data embassy in Luxembourg, where servers remain under Estonian state control and are used to store critical data and help maintain government digital services in the event of cyberattacks or other major crises. The two countries signed an agreement on the data embassy in 2017.
Kazakhstan’s Data Embassy concept is still being developed. It is being considered alongside Data Center Valley, but the government has not said that foreign states’ sovereign data would necessarily be stored at the Ekibastuz campus. Data Center Valley itself is intended to host computing capacity and cloud services for international clients.
Foreign investor interest in Kazakhstan’s data center market is not limited to this project. Singapore-based GK Hyperscale Ltd plans to build two data centers in the Akmola and Karaganda regions, with a combined capacity of 200 MW. SuperX AI Technology Limited is separately considering a phased AI computing park with potential capacity of up to 1 GW.
Behind these projects is Kazakhstan’s attempt to use its energy base for a new type of business. For decades, the country has turned electricity into metals and other energy-intensive products. Now it wants to use the same resource for computing and artificial intelligence.
