Kazakhstan Adds Over 4,000 New IT Companies in Two Years Amid Tech Boom

Kazakhstan’s IT sector has seen rapid expansion, with the number of registered IT companies surpassing 18,600 by the end of 2024, a 16% increase over three years, according to the Ministry of Digital Development, Innovations and Aerospace Industry (MDDIAI). In 2022, the country had around 14,000 IT firms. The surge is attributed in large part to the development of the Astana Hub international technopark, which now hosts more than 1,700 resident companies. Kazakhstan has also launched 19 regional IT hubs and established international platforms in Saudi Arabia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Dubai, and China. Astana Hub, Central Asia’s largest IT startup technopark, has attracted over 336 billion tenge ($624 million) in investments since its launch in 2018. This growth has been supported by state tax incentives totaling 130 billion tenge ($241 million). In 2024, Astana Hub residents generated 620 billion tenge ($1.33 billion) in revenue, accounting for more than half of Kazakhstan’s total IT sector revenue, which reached 1.2 trillion tenge ($2.2 billion). Export earnings contributed 140 billion tenge ($260 million). Looking ahead, the government aims to raise IT service exports to $1 billion by 2026. Support programs include AI’preneurs and the Silk Way Accelerator, which is operated in partnership with Google. More than 40 Kazakhstani startups have taken part in accelerator programs in Silicon Valley through collaborations with AlchemistX, Draper University, and the Silkroad Innovation Hub. The Tech Orda initiative aims to train 100,000 IT professionals by 2025. In parallel, the AI Qyzmet program, the first of its kind in Central Eurasia, focuses on equipping civil servants with skills in artificial intelligence to modernize public administration. Kazakhstan is also building out a national AI ecosystem. The Alem.AI International Center for Artificial Intelligence will offer research and training opportunities, while AlemLLM, the country’s largest Kazakh-language large language model, is now available to startups, academic institutions, and private companies. In July, Kazakhstan launched alem.cloud, Central Asia’s most powerful supercomputer cluster, designed to support AI development and deployment.