Digital Infrastructure - The Times Of Central Asia

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C5+1

U.S. Links Trusted Digital Infrastructure to Investment at C5+1 Conference

Stronger cybersecurity and trusted digital infrastructure could encourage greater U.S. investment in Central Asia, Mark Cameron said in Astana on September 29. Cameron, deputy assistant secretary in the State Department’s Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, was speaking at the C5+1 conference on artificial intelligence. He said data centers and trusted infrastructure would give American companies greater confidence to invest and expand their cooperation across the region. “The strongest house is built on the firmest foundation,” Cameron told reporters, linking cybersecurity to the development of advanced AI. Cameron said Washington sees private companies as central to the process, with government programs helping create conditions for investment and technological cooperation. “The United States has the deep belief that companies, given the opportunity, will find great solutions and new opportunities that many of us have never even considered before,” Cameron said. He said Washington has committed $5 million through CRDF Global for cybersecurity and digital-sector assistance. The support covers incident response, critical infrastructure protection, financial sector security, and cybersecurity policy. The C5+1 format brings together the United States and the five Central Asian countries. The conference comes ahead of Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s planned business delegation to Uzbekistan in mid-October, involving executives from more than 100 American companies alongside talks with the region’s foreign ministers. Kazakhstan Sets Out Its AI Development Model Kazakhstan’s vice minister of artificial intelligence and digital development, Bakhtiyar Mukhametkaliyev, described the development of an AI economy as a five-layer process. Energy comes first, followed by access to chips and graphics processing units (GPUs), information systems, high-quality data, and finally AI agents. Countries that attempt to deploy AI agents before building the infrastructure and data beneath them, Mukhametkaliyev said, are unlikely to realize their full economic value. He also framed data centers as a way for Kazakhstan to convert its energy and resource base into higher-value digital capacity. Mukhametkaliyev stressed that Kazakhstan does not intend to build its emerging AI ecosystem solely for the domestic market. He said the infrastructure should also help neighboring countries develop their AI industries and improve connectivity. He also pointed to drones, space technologies, startups, and workforce reskilling as areas where digitalization could create new markets and occupations. Kazakhstan’s ties with U.S. technology companies are also expanding. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang is scheduled to make his first visit to Kazakhstan on October 23, as the country develops data centers and NVIDIA-based computing infrastructure. Regional Plans for AI Development Kyrgyzstan focused on practical AI applications, human oversight, education, and local-language models. Niyazaly Bazarbaev, adviser to the minister of digital development and innovative technologies, said Kyrgyz and other Central Asian languages remain insufficiently represented in existing AI systems. He discussed work involving a Kyrgyz-language corpus of roughly five million words and efforts to prepare the school curriculum for an AI-driven economy. Tajikistan presented AI as a presidential priority. Hakim Ismoilzoda, first deputy director of the Agency for Innovation and Digital Technologies, highlighted Tajikistan’s initiatives at the United Nations on AI and its safe, secure,...

NVIDIA

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang Set for First Visit to Kazakhstan in October

NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang is set to make his first visit to Kazakhstan on October 23, as the country expands its artificial intelligence infrastructure. Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development announced the visit on September 23. Huang is scheduled to hold a fireside chat with Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development Zhaslan Madiyev at the alem.ai International Center for Artificial Intelligence in Astana. The event will close Kazakhstan’s AI Month program. The ministry said the discussion will cover developments in artificial intelligence, technology trends, the training of AI specialists, and Central Asia’s role in the global technology sector. The visit comes amid rapidly expanding ties between NVIDIA and Kazakhstan. In June, Kazakhstan announced agreements worth up to $10 billion connected to the Data Center Valley project under development in Ekibastuz. U.S.-based Firebird is developing the project using NVIDIA technology. NVIDIA Vice President Rev Lebaredian and Firebird co-founders Razmig Hovaghimian and Alexander Yesayan took part in talks with Prime Minister Olzhas Bektenov. The project is planned to include a computing cluster of around 100,000 advanced GPUs, including NVIDIA GB300 and Vera Rubin systems. Kazakh officials initially allocated 300 megawatts of power capacity for the development, while the wider site is designed to scale to as much as one gigawatt. The first Data Center Valley facility is scheduled to begin operating in June 2027. The initial facility is planned at 50 megawatts, with the larger campus expanding in stages as additional customers and investment are secured. In July, the government said partners were rolling out 250 megawatts of infrastructure at the Ekibastuz project. Kazakhstan is already operating NVIDIA-based high-performance computing infrastructure. Two Kazakh systems appeared on the June 2026 TOP500 ranking of the world’s most powerful supercomputers. Alem.Cloud ranked 104th and AI-Farabium 122nd, with both systems using NVIDIA H200 accelerators. Kazakhstan has also announced a separate $2 billion sovereign AI hub to be operated by Freedom Holding using NVIDIA technology. The planned project would occupy a site with 100 megawatts of available power, with Freedom Holding as the principal financing and implementation partner. Visit Caps AI Month Huang’s visit is scheduled to conclude a month of AI-related events beginning September 23. The program includes HackAlem AI, the AI & Digital Bridge 2026 forum, and a meeting of Kazakhstan’s Council for the Development of Artificial Intelligence. Lebaredian is expected to participate in the AI Council meeting on October 1. Huang’s visit comes as Kazakhstan accelerates an AI infrastructure buildout already spanning NVIDIA-powered supercomputers, large-scale data centers, dedicated power capacity, and plans for tens of thousands of advanced processors.

Digital Infrastructure

Uzbekistan Opens AI Data Centers and Signs Amazon Satellite Internet Deal

Uzbekistan’s state telecoms operator Uztelecom is expanding the country’s digital infrastructure with two new data centers, a satellite internet deal with Amazon, and a high-speed network designed to move large amounts of data between computing facilities. The projects were presented on September 22, the first day of ICTWEEK Uzbekistan 2026, the country’s largest technology week, which runs in Tashkent through September 25. [video width="1920" height="1080" mp4="https://timesca.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/document_5303308046666082166.mp4"][/video] The new data centers have opened in Bukhara and Kokand. They operate as part of the UzCloud platform and provide computing capacity to both government agencies and businesses. The facilities have servers with graphics processing units (GPUs) for training and running artificial intelligence models, machine learning, processing large datasets, and video analytics. Bukhara and Kokand are both more than 300 kilometers from Tashkent. Distributing computing capacity across different regions makes it possible to shift workloads to another site in the event of a failure. The designs of both data centers have received Tier III certification from the Uptime Institute. This confirms that the designs allow maintenance without interrupting operations. “We are expanding access to computing resources and artificial intelligence capabilities for the government and businesses,” Umar Izbasarov, Director of Uztelecom’s Department for Advanced Development and Investment Projects, said at ICTWEEK. Uztelecom has also signed an agreement with Amazon Leo, Amazon’s satellite internet network. UZ-SAT, a subsidiary of the Uzbek operator, will act as an authorized distributor of its services in Uzbekistan. Amazon Leo is a low-Earth-orbit satellite network being built out to include more than 3,000 satellites and designed to provide connectivity in areas where terrestrial networks are difficult or expensive to build. According to Uztelecom, its infrastructure currently covers 96% of Uzbekistan’s settlements, while its fiber-optic network extends for more than 378,000 kilometers. The satellite network is expected to complement it in remote areas and at industrial sites. “The partnership with Amazon Leo will allow us to expand connectivity in areas of the country where the use of traditional terrestrial infrastructure is limited,” UZ-SAT CEO Bakhrom Azimov said. Amazon’s satellite network would add another connectivity option for remote areas alongside fiber-optic and mobile networks. The announcement does not specify when services will become widely available to customers in Uzbekistan. The third project concerns how data is transferred between data centers. Uztelecom, together with Japan’s Toyota Tsusho, NTT DOCOMO BUSINESS, and NEC, is launching a pilot All-Photonics Network, or APN. The technology keeps data traveling as light for more of its journey, rather than repeatedly converting it into electrical signals. This can make connections faster and more energy-efficient. In the first phase, APN is expected to connect two Uztelecom data centers in the Tashkent region. The planned link is designed to provide bandwidth of up to 800 Gbps and latency of less than one millisecond. In 2027-2028, the network is expected to expand to the data centers in Bukhara and Kokand. “The growing needs of Uzbekistan’s economy require new data centers and network technologies capable of connecting them into a single high-performance system,” Izbasarov...

Data Center Valley

Can Kazakhstan Power Its AI Ambitions?

For now, it is only a vast construction site lost in the steppe, a few kilometers from Ekibastuz, a mining city in northern Kazakhstan. Cranes move behind fences in the shadow of a Soviet-era power station. It is hard to imagine that, from 2027, this site is supposed to become the first piece of a giant artificial intelligence campus. Known as Data Center Valley, the project is eventually expected to reach one gigawatt. At full capacity, it could consume as much as 8.8 terawatt-hours a year, Kazakh media Qyzyq estimated, around 7% of Kazakhstan’s current electricity generation. Development will be gradual, with an initial 50-megawatt facility scheduled to enter service in June 2027. U.S.-based Firebird.ai and state-controlled Kazakhtelecom are leading the industrial project. Yet the futuristic bet collides with a more prosaic reality. “Economic and industrial growth in Kazakhstan is currently outpacing the rate of commissioning and modernization of generating capacity,” the Ministry of Energy acknowledged in a response to The Times of Central Asia. In 2025, the gap between domestic generation and consumption reached 1.5 terawatt-hours, forcing the country to import electricity, mainly from Russia. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has acknowledged the scale of the challenge. At the National Kurultai in January, he said data centers consume electricity on a scale comparable to metallurgical plants and that Kazakhstan’s existing generation was “clearly insufficient” for its development plans. He called energy self-sufficiency a key state priority and ordered an expansion of generating capacity, including new coal-fired power. How, then, can Kazakhstan power a campus that could consume almost six times that shortfall? More strikingly, when the government prepared its 2026 electricity forecast, neither Data Center Valley nor any other AI or data-center project was included. The ministry says they will enter its calculations from 2027 - the same year the first facility is due to start operating. [caption id="attachment_54529" align="aligncenter" width="1774"] The mine of Bogatyr is expanding to increase production[/caption] From Coal to Algorithms In Ekibastuz, the answer comes down to one word: coal. “In essence, Kazakhstan is turning Ekibastuz coal into export digital revenue,” Kazakhtelecom chairman Bagdat Musin has said. Electricity generated locally would be converted into computing services sold internationally. No major named customer contract has been announced, although Firebird says it holds guaranteed service contracts with global players. Amazon and G42 have been named as companies entering the ecosystem, while Kazakhstan has also held talks with Microsoft and OpenAI. The landscape appears built for that ambition. Nearby lies Bogatyr, one of the world’s largest open-pit coal mines. From the observation deck, terraces of rock descend 300 meters into the earth. Excavators and haul trucks look like toys at the bottom. “Ekibastuz is a very smart choice: energy is abundant and cheap here, while proximity limits transmission losses between the power station and the consumer,” Yevgeny Masternak, CEO of mine operator Bogatyr Komir, told TCA. To keep pace with anticipated demand, the company plans to raise annual production from 42 million tonnes in 2024 to more than 56 million...

Digital Finance

Opinion: Tajikistan’s Digital Finance Boom Faces Its Next Challenge – Keeping Money Digital

Tajikistan’s e-wallet numbers are striking. As of June 30, 2026, 28 credit financial institutions reported 19.8 million electronic wallets, up 25.9% from a year earlier. In the first half of 2026, e-wallets were used for 14.6 million non-cash transactions worth 3.6 billion somoni. But those figures should not be read as if 19.8 million people are actively using wallets. The National Bank of Tajikistan’s published aggregate data do not state how many wallets belong to unique users or how many are active. Nor do they show how usage is distributed among them. Without that denominator, the headline figure tells us much less about actual use. Tajikistan has clearly expanded digital access. It now needs a clearer picture of usage and stronger reasons for people and businesses to keep money inside the digital system. I call this the shift from digital access to digital retention. The headline number is 19.8 million wallets out of an official population of 10.721 million as of January 1, 2026. The more useful number would be how many are meaningfully active. Do Not Confuse Registration With Usage A registered wallet is an access point, not proof of financial behavior. One person may hold several wallets, and some may sit dormant. Usage may also be concentrated among a smaller group of frequent users. Without active-wallet and unique-user data, none of those possibilities should be assumed as fact. What we can say is that non-cash activity is growing. The National Bank reports that cashless payments for goods and services made with electronic payment instruments reached 41% in the first half of 2026, 13 percentage points higher than a year earlier. It also reports 9,425 POS terminals at trade and service points and 33,620 QR codes. That 41% figure covers electronic payment instruments, including bank cards and e-wallets. It is not an e-wallet usage rate. To understand how wallets are actually being used, Tajikistan needs a clearer view of active wallets, transaction frequency, and what happens to money after it enters a digital account. Trust Is Part of the Infrastructure For many people, the move from cash to bank cards was already a significant behavioral change. They learned to trust money represented by a balance on a screen rather than notes in a hand. Wallets, QR payments and app-based financial services require another layer of trust. Users need to know where their money is and whether a payment went through. They also need a clear route when something goes wrong. Fees should be easy to understand. This is why simplicity is part of financial trust, not merely user experience. Tajikistan’s Financial Literacy Program for 2026–2030 makes the same connection at a policy level. It links financial literacy and consumer protection with public confidence as digital financial services expand. A good digital-finance service should be usable by ordinary people without making money feel harder to understand. Users should not need fintech expertise to trust the product. Merchants Need a Reason Not to Cash Out Consumers are only one part of...

Data Center Valley

Kazakhstan Sets June 2027 Launch for First Data Center Valley Facility

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...