Almaty has ranked 38th among 61 cities in the inaugural Intelligent Cities Index, a respectable result that also reveals the distance between Kazakhstan’s digital ambitions and the world’s leading urban centers.
The index, compiled by Boston Consulting Group (BCG), assesses how cities use artificial intelligence and digital technology to improve services and outcomes for residents. Almaty scored 62 out of 100, placing it in BCG’s “emerging” category.
What Almaty’s Ranking Reveals
This score placed Almaty 38th among 61 major cities worldwide, ranking above cities including Milan, Melbourne, and Istanbul. However, it remained five points below the lowest-ranked city in BCG’s higher “accelerating” category and 23 points behind London, which headed the index with 85 points.
Almaty performed reasonably well on strategy, adoption, and digital infrastructure, but its weakest score was for “ways of working,” which covers institutional readiness, governance, and project implementation.
BCG found that leading cities combined technology with clear accountability, reliable funding, and measurable improvements for residents.
The publication of these rankings has coincided with Kazakhstan’s adoption of a national methodology for Smart Cities and Smart Regions, approved by the Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development.
The framework, which took effect on July 12, sets common requirements and deadlines for the country’s cities. The question is whether it will improve urban life or encourage local authorities to accumulate equipment and platforms in pursuit of higher scores.
Tackling Everyday Urban Problems
The clearest examples in Almaty concern public transport, which residents will be able to judge through their daily journeys. Buses already carry GPS trackers and video cameras, while fares can be paid through the ONAY electronic payment system.
The city plans to add payment by bank card, Apple Pay, and Samsung Pay. Electronic information displays are due to be installed at 1,188 bus stops during 2026–27.
Officials also announced in February that 50 driverless vehicles would be placed on city roads in cooperation with Yandex Kazakhstan under a pilot program. The stated deadline was May 1, 2026, although no subsequent official announcement confirming the deployment was readily available by late July. This illustrates a wider problem: announcements are often reported more prominently than results.
For these projects to improve Almaty’s position, the city will need to show whether digitalization has reduced journey times, made bus arrivals more reliable, improved road safety, or encouraged greater use of public transport.
Capital Investment
Astana provides a larger-scale example. In February 2025, the capital signed a six-year, $190 million agreement with the UAE-based Presight AI. The project covers traffic management, public services and sensors.
Astana is also installing or integrating more than 22,000 AI-enabled facial-recognition cameras. The capital’s iKomek 109 contact center handled approximately 2.5 million requests in 2025, with 83% reportedly resolved during the first call.
Alatau City: Kazakhstan’s Largest Test
The most ambitious scheme is Alatau City, being developed between Almaty and the Kapshagai Reservoir. Unlike existing cities, Alatau is being designed from the outset with a separate legal and administrative framework and extensive digital management. The government intends it to become Kazakhstan’s first large-scale AI-driven city.
The project includes intelligent transport systems, automated infrastructure management, and the K Smart City, a district designed with South Korean partners.
Its investment portfolio comprises 53 projects worth about 2 trillion tenge, or $3.9 billion. They are expected to create 51,000 jobs, while parallel investment continues in transport links, engineering networks, and social infrastructure needed to support future growth. Alatau’s population is projected to grow from just over 60,000 to almost two million by 2050.
However, even the best laid plans do not always survive contact with reality.
The idea of building a new city outside Almaty has existed for decades. The G4 City concept was first presented in 2007 and formally launched in 2008. It envisaged four satellite districts between Almaty and Kapshagai, with separate business, education, industrial, and tourism functions, whilst also serving to ease congestion and housing pressure in Almaty.
Between 2008 and 2015, more than 31 billion tenge in public money was reportedly spent on engineering infrastructure for the first district, only for public funding shortages and weak private investment to subsequently bring much of the development to a halt. For years, the proposed city remained largely on paper before the project was revived and reorganized as Alatau.
That history should temper claims that a new legal regime or AI platform will by itself guarantee delivery. Alatau is already an existing city assembled from former villages and settlements, whose residents require basic services while the government plans its future districts.
In October 2025, Vlast quoted several residents during reporting visits and public planning meetings who complained about poor roads, unreliable utilities, weak internet access, and inadequate services. One interviewee from Zhetygen said cameras had been installed while roads and garbage collection remained poor.
The same report found that only seven people attended one presentation on the city’s development after the meeting was announced the previous evening. That experience sits uneasily beside the national smart-city methodology’s stated principles of transparency and citizen participation.
Technology as a Tool Rather Than a Result
Almaty’s inclusion in BCG’s index shows that Kazakhstan has established a credible digital foundation. Its place in the “emerging” group, and particularly its weak score for ways of working, shows that infrastructure and ambition have yet to be matched by equally strong institutions and measurable resident outcomes.
The new national methodology creates deadlines and a common system for assessing progress. It will be useful only when authorities publish the results openly, explain failures as well as successes, and allow residents to judge whether digital projects are solving the problems they encounter.
For Almaty, that might mean demonstrating that transport technology has made journeys faster and more reliable, while in Astana it could mean demonstrating that the $190 million platform produces measurable improvements in traffic management and public services sufficient to justify its cost.
Meanwhile in Alatau, the immediate priority is ensuring that existing communities have access to basic utilities and accessible public services, even as plans for an AI-managed metropolis take shape.
