The editorial board of the Primeminister website.kz continues a series of publications on the results of Kazakhstan's development in 2024. In his Message to the people of the country "Fair Kazakhstan: law and order, economic growth, public optimism", the Head of State noted the importance of strengthening the achieved results in the field of digitalization. It is especially necessary to intensify work in the field of introducing artificial intelligence technologies into the e-Government platform.
Today, according to the UN assessment, Kazakhstan is demonstrating progress in the field of digitalization. Our country ranks 24th among 193 countries, and is also among the top 10 in the online services index. For example, access to public services via the Internet has reached 92%.
In addition, biometric identification and QR signature services are being introduced, which has greatly simplified the process of obtaining electronic services. In 2024, more than 8 million signatures were executed using QR codes, and over 18 million identifications were carried out through the Digital ID system.
The process of improving and modernizing the e-Government platform is continuous and is in the active phase of transition to the third version. The new eGov will become much more stable and convenient, including through the use of AI technologies.
Kazakhstan has started sharing its advanced e-government solutions with countries such as Tajikistan, Togo, and Sierra Leone.
The government is developing similar services for businesses, providing a full cycle of support – from registration to liquidation of companies.
Innovations in the IT industry
In 2024, Kazakhstan's IT industry demonstrated dynamic growth. The number of IT companies has reached 18,683, an increase of 16% over the past three years. For example, the Astana Hub International technology Park operates in the country. Today, it confirms its role as a center for the development of IT startups in Kazakhstan. The technopark brought together more than 1.5 thousand participants. Among them are 1102 Kazakhstani and 437 foreign companies. The total revenue of the participants amounted to 1.2 trillion tenge. A 31-fold increase over the past five years. Export revenue this year exceeded 140 billion tenge. The annual growth has already increased by more than 10 times in four years. Thus, Astana Hub continues to strengthen its position as the leading technology park in the region.
The development of regional hubs has become a key element of the innovation ecosystem. To date, there are 18 such sites operating throughout the country. They actively contribute to the development of local startups and entrepreneurship. All startup and IT industry development programs are available to regional IT hubs. Thus, regional hubs are becoming an important driver of the development of the IT industry in Kazakhstan, contributing to the disclosure of talents and the creation of a strong innovation ecosystem.
To fully unlock the potential of the IT sector in Kazakhstan, a "Single window" of the national innovation system has been created, where most measures of state support for IT specialists, innovators and scientists have been withdrawn. The portal ensures transparency and efficiency of the distribution of government support measures. Today, it is used by more than half a million people annually. The portal can be said to have become a single window by analogy with EGOV.
In addition, conditions are being created to attract talented professionals from all over the world. An Expat Center operates on the basis of the AIFC. It serves as a single window for receiving government services for foreign specialists.
Export of IT services
Kazakhstan's IT services exports are showing rapid growth. In 2023, its volume reached $529 million, and in the first half of 2024, this figure exceeded $305 million. That is, the President's instructions to bring the export of IT services to $1 billion by 2026 are being confidently fulfilled.
For this purpose, various acceleration programs are conducted in Kazakhstan, which involve leading experts and investors. Thus making it easier for commercial products to enter foreign markets.
In addition, the international network is also expanding. Three foreign IT hubs are already successfully operating in the USA, Saudi Arabia and Singapore. All these initiatives help to attract talent and open up new opportunities for international cooperation for Kazakhstani startups.
Kazakhstan, by the way, is already the leader of the region in terms of the volume of venture deals concluded. Significant investments were attracted by companies such as CITIX, Hero's Journey, Higgsfield AI, etc. Some of these companies have already reached a valuation of $100 million. In fact, Kazakhstan is becoming a key innovation hub in the region.
Today, IT services from Kazakhstan are exported to 86 countries, which confirms the high demand and the ability of domestic companies to successfully compete at the global level. The key export destinations are Russia, Ireland, Mexico, the USA and Singapore.
Training of IT specialists
The average monthly salary of IT specialists in 2024 increased by 54%, reaching 673 thousand tenge, reflecting the high demand for qualified personnel and competitive working conditions. Employment in the IT sector increased by 12% to 187 thousand people.
In order to implement the instruction of the Head of State, the Tech Orda program has been launched, which aims to train 20,000 IT specialists by 2025 by stimulating private IT schools. Private IT schools have trained more than 16 thousand experts in the field of information technology. Work in this direction is carried out within the framework of providing the labor market with qualified personnel. By the way, there are many successful stories of graduates of the Tech Orda program who were able to move from completely different industries to the IT sphere.
The development of artificial intelligence
In his message to the people of the country "Fair Kazakhstan: law and order, economic growth, public optimism", the Head of State stressed the importance of introducing artificial intelligence and digital technologies for sustainable development. In this regard, the Ministry of Digital Development, Innovation and Aerospace Industry has implemented several important initiatives:
An AI Committee has been established to coordinate the development of the field;
The concept of AI development for 2024-2029 has been approved;
A draft Law on AI has been developed, which will provide the necessary regulatory framework for further growth.
On behalf of the Head of State, work is underway to open an Artificial Intelligence Center in Astana. The mission of the Center is to promote the AI transformation of Kazakhstan by attracting talents from all over the region. It is planned to train thousands of specialists, hundreds of startups and dozens of research projects in the field of AI every year.
In addition, it is currently planned to launch educational projects, including the TUMO center for creative technologies for schoolchildren. Also in October of this year, the region's first artificial intelligence school, TomorrowSchool, was opened to train specialists in the field of AI
In addition, on behalf of the President, Kazakhstan is developing its own language model KazLLM. It should become the basis for a number of technological solutions developed by Kazakhstani companies. This will reduce dependence on foreign technologies, which is especially important for protecting national interests, personal data and ensuring the ideological independence of the country. The use of its own language model will contribute to the development of the domestic IT services market. Currently, the model is being actively trained on the collected 148 billion tokens.
By the way, AI-based products are already being created on its basis. These are AI assistants in such areas as eGov, E-otinish and legal assistant.
#Innovation #Digitalization

Source : https://www.gov.kz/memleket/entities/aqmola/press/news/details/901571