Kazakhstan emerges as regional leader in AI readiness
Kazakhstan ranked 60th out of 195 countries in the 2025 Government AI Readiness Index by Oxford Insights, moving up 16 places from last year. That makes it the top performer in Central Asia for government capacity to adopt and manage AI.
The index measures how well governments can apply AI across public services, the economy and society, and whether they've built the conditions for safe, responsible, and sustainable use. It's the only global ranking that focuses entirely on the role of the state in AI development.
Where Kazakhstan gained ground
- Public sector adoption: A standout score of 73.59 reflects strong uptake of digital tools in government, maturing e-government platforms and more proactive digital interaction with citizens and businesses.
- Infrastructure: National digital platforms, high internet penetration and reliable telecom networks give a solid base to scale AI services nationwide.
- Policy and management: Strategic documents and an emerging regulatory framework show clear political will and a long-term approach.
According to the Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development, the jump in rankings mirrors stronger institutions, expanded infrastructure and active integration of AI into public services.
Why this matters for government, IT and development teams
- Service quality: AI-ready infrastructure shortens the path from pilot to production for citizen-facing services.
- Data leverage: Mature e-government systems create cleaner, more consistent datasets for AI models-if access and governance are handled well.
- Execution speed: Clear policy direction reduces procurement friction and helps agencies scale proven use cases.
- Compute capacity: The launch of Central Asia's most powerful supercomputer strengthens national compute access for research, model training and public-sector pilots.
Priority actions for 2025
- Commercialisation: Create challenge funds and procurement pathways that help local startups sell into government. Standardize AI evaluation checklists so vendors can meet requirements without guesswork.
- Data foundations: Expand high-value public datasets with clear licenses; implement privacy-preserving access (synthetic data, secure data rooms) for regulators and researchers.
- Responsible AI: Stand up an AI assurance framework covering model risk tiers, incident reporting, red-teaming and audit trails for high-impact use cases.
- Compute strategy: Offer shared GPU time on the national supercomputer for public-interest projects; publish transparent allocation rules and usage metrics.
- Local models: Invest in Kazakh- and Russian-language model capabilities, evaluation sets and benchmarks for government scenarios (forms, search, summarization, contact-center automation).
- Skills and capacity: Upskill public servants, engineers and product teams with practical AI training tied to priority services and measurable outcomes.
- Market development: Expand grants, co-innovation sandboxes and pilot credits to help SMEs cross the "first customer" gap.
Metrics to watch
- Year-over-year movement in the Government AI Readiness Index
- Share of top public services with AI-enabled features in production
- Average procurement cycle time for AI projects
- Open datasets added and refreshed each quarter
- Utilization of national compute resources (GPU hours, projects supported)
- Private investment into local AI startups and research partnerships
Context and sources
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