Astana, 23 October. NVIDIA founder and chief executive Jensen Huang visited Kazakhstan for the first time at the invitation of Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development Zhaslan Madiyev.
At a meeting at the Alem.ai international AI centre he called physical artificial intelligence, AI that controls robots and machines in the real world, "the largest industry in the world".
Madiyev asked Huang what Kazakhstan needs to do to become a regional centre for training robots and one of NVIDIA's key partners in developing models for physical AI. "Physical AI will become the largest industry in the world, because most of our reality is about interacting with the physical world," the NVIDIA chief replied. In his words, an AI economy needs three components: electricity, data and demand for AI solutions. "Instead of simply exporting energy, in future you will be able to turn it into intelligence and export intelligent solutions," Huang said.
He praised Kazakhstan's large language model Kazakh LLM: "I am very glad to see that Kazakhstan already has its own large language model, Kazakh LLM, which makes it possible to collect, process and use national data to create its own artificial intelligence." "Kazakhstan is the first country I have visited where the President has declared the country an AI state," he added. Madiyev said Kazakhstan plans to raise its energy capacity to 40 GW by 2035.
Asked from the audience what he would study if he were 18 and lived in Kazakhstan, Huang advised becoming "the best artificial intelligence programmer in the world". During the visit Madiyev announced that NVIDIA had invested in Higgsfield AI, a startup with Kazakh roots.
What it means: The head of the largest maker of AI chips visited Kazakhstan for the first time and publicly backed the idea that the country can turn energy into computing and AI products. No specific agreements apart from the Higgsfield investment were announced.
Who benefits: The Ministry of AI and Digital Development, which gets support for its "AI state" course from one of the industry's leading figures; NVIDIA, which sees a possible market for its computing systems; Kazakh AI startups, which get investor attention.
Background: AI MONTH 2026 has been under way in Kazakhstan since 23 September; the President has named digital transformation one of the country's priorities.
List of sources used: Kazinform, Forbes.kz, Zakon.kz, BES.media
Artificial intelligence was used in preparing this material.
