00:00Musica
00:10Kazakstan is racing to become Central Asia's AI hub
00:13With nearly all public services already online
00:16The country plans to go fully digital within three years
00:19The government has even created a dedicated AI ministry and research university
00:23Part of a broader push to make AI a national growth engine
00:27Welcome to EastWestConnect
00:31We're highlighting business and economic developments in Kazakhstan
00:34And the wider Central Asia region
00:36Connecting with Europe and beyond
00:38Kazakhstan unveiled its first and largest supercomputer this summer
00:42Powered by NVIDIA chips and built for AI research
00:45It can perform two quintillion calculations per second
00:48We sat down with Jaslan Madiev, Deputy Prime Minister
00:51Overseeing artificial intelligence and digital development
00:54To explore how the nation is shaping its AI ecosystem
00:57We are opening other supercomputer clusters
01:02We have a supercomputer GPU cluster in US, in Silicon Valley, in Texas
01:06Now opening another supercomputer cluster in Almaty
01:09So this is the important computing infrastructure that will be available for startups, science centers, research and R&D centers, universities, Samruk Kazina holding company and national companies and government bodies
01:27So this is for developing AI agents, AI products and embedding AI into the economy
01:34And embedding AI into the economy
01:36On the top of that we have built several Kazakh large language models
01:40Which will be used by those platforms
01:42And from the digital sovereignty perspective
01:45It's a very important step
01:48We have our Kaz LLM on meta foundational models like LAMA
01:54We have E-Lightning and Dipsik and it's open source
01:58Beyond the first Kazakh large language model
02:01Should we expect any other game changers on the horizon?
02:04LMAI, International AI Center
02:07Is like a big funnel starting from the general public
02:10And going through the kids, students, startups, big techs
02:15And the best solutions will be embedded into the economy sector
02:19It's a big center of competence
02:2220 plus thousand square meters building
02:25Eight floors
02:26On the second and third floor
02:28We will launch two more education
02:30School kids of age of 12 to 18
02:33We'll cover 11 areas
02:35Generative AI, robotics, 3D modeling, filmmaking, music making
02:40So the creative industry also will be covered
02:43On the fourth and fifth floor
02:45We'll be having tomorrow school
02:48Launching it together with Nicolas Adirac
02:50A famous entrepreneur from France
02:53On the sixth floor
02:55We will have AI campus for startups
02:58With our acceleration programs
03:00We are exclusive partner of Google for startups
03:03We have acceleration program with Dreper University
03:06StarTex from Stanford
03:08Alchemist B2B accelerator
03:11We have our own homemade accelerator program
03:14AIpreneurs
03:16Where people come as individuals
03:17We give them data sets, GPUs
03:21We give large language models
03:23And they graduate as startups
03:25So it will be like the factory of startups
03:28On the seventh floor
03:30We'll have big tech offices
03:32R&D labs, AI centers
03:35Mr. Deputy Prime Minister, thank you so much
03:37Thank you, my pleasure
03:38Kazakhstan is positioning itself as Central Asia's gateway to global tech
03:45Connecting startups, investors and policy makers
03:48Under one roof in Astana
03:52Over 20,000 innovators, investors and startups
03:55Gathered in Astana for the three-day digital bridge forum
03:58Central Asia's largest tech event
04:00Startups secured tens of thousands of euros in funding
04:04As Kazakhstan showcased its growing digital and AI ambitions
04:07The goal was one
04:08The goal was one
04:09The goal was one
04:10The goal was to create a certain platform
04:11The collaborative environment
04:12Where, in the sense of education
04:14Business, the government
04:16The big tech companies
04:17The big tech companies
04:18The venture
04:19Among the startups driving this new wave
04:21Is Neurobox
04:22A compact supercomputer
04:23That can replace entire departments in finance
04:26And government
04:27With its multimodal
04:28AI agents
04:29Running fully offline
04:30It performs 180 trillion operations per second
04:34Building AI models without cloud access
04:37At this year's forum, President Tokaev announced plans to turn digital bridge into an AI bridge
04:59Linking Kazakhstan's technological ambitions with the global AI future
05:03By 2029, Kazakhstan wants to see a hundred new startups every year
05:10And raise AI exports to more than 4 billion euros
05:13Here to assess the effectiveness of the country's AI strategy is a venture investor
05:18Marat Tolubay, CEO of Aktivat Venture Capital
05:21Mr Tolubay, welcome
05:24So my first question is
05:26What would convince investors watching us today
05:28To take a closer look at Kazakhstan's AI ecosystem?
05:31The venture market in general
05:34In our region, Central Asia and Kazakhstan
05:36In recent years, Kazakhstan is a leader on this market
05:42For example, in 2024, the startups were invested in all the region
05:49Over 100 million dollars
05:50And of them, 70 million dollars
05:52were invested in Kazakhstan
05:54In Kazakhstan's startups
05:55Now, we're on the market
05:58We have about 20-25 specialised fonds
06:00companies, which only invest in startups
06:04We have about 1500 startups
06:05There are about 1500 startups
06:07This market is developing very strong
06:09This market is developing
06:10A very strong startup
06:11Kazakhstan's startup Hicksfield
06:12became the first one
06:13The price of a billion dollars
06:14The price of more than 1 billion dollars
06:16But there are a number of other
06:18Kazakhstan's startups
06:19Do Kazakh startups attract any international co-investors
06:26Or are they still largely dependent on domestic capital?
06:29We have a standard scheme
06:30We have a standard scheme
06:31That startup, who showed good results
06:33On the local market
06:34He gets investment
06:35He gets investment
06:36From Kazakhstan's investors
06:37And goes on the international market
06:39But we have a number of startups
06:40We have a number of startups
06:42Who already received investment
06:44From foreign investors
06:46The same Hicksfield
06:47The same thing
06:49Leaping AI
06:50Alma
06:51These startups
06:52These startups
06:53They received investment
06:54And from our portfolio
06:57Startup
06:58Garderob
06:59He received investment
07:00From the European Fund
07:01The European Fund
07:02The main advantage of
07:03Now that
07:04Kazakhstan's startups
07:05Is that
07:06And
07:07Startup
07:08With the AI
07:09Startup
07:10With the AI
07:11Startup
07:12Is that
07:13The startup
07:14Is that
07:15The startup
07:16Is that
07:17The startup
07:18Is that
07:19The startup
07:20Is that
07:21The startup
07:22Is that
07:23As
07:24The
07:25Europe
07:26In
07:27The
07:28The
07:28The
07:30The
07:31The
07:32The
07:34The
07:35The
07:36The
07:37The
07:40The
07:50The
07:51With
07:52That's all for now. See you in the next episode of East West Connect.
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