Astana, 10 November. Kazakhstan marks the Day of Digitalization and Information Technology Workers in the Year of Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence: on the eve of the holiday Astana Hub said its ecosystem has 2,700 companies after eight years, while the Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development agreed with Kazakhtelecom to build optical lines in more than 1,000 villages, the ministry said.
The holiday was established in 2022 by a government resolution on the initiative of the line ministry, Kazakhstanskaya Pravda wrote. The date was no accident: on 10 November 2004 a decree was issued on a state programme to build e-government, Nur.kz recalled. Today more than 18,000 companies work in the sector, DigitalBusiness.kz wrote.
The Year of Digitalization and AI was announced by President Tokayev in his New Year address, Kazinform reported. One result of the year is the Digital Code signed on 9 January 2026: it for the first time put citizens’ digital rights into law and defined the status of data, electronic documents, services and platforms, Kazinform said.
First-hand figures come from Astana Hub, which marked its eighth anniversary. The cluster unites 2,700 companies, 560 of them with foreign participation. Since 2019 the combined revenue of ecosystem members has reached 6.7 billion dollars, IT services exports 2.4 billion dollars, and startups have raised more than 2 billion dollars in investment. The 20 regional IT hubs have held more than 5,200 events attended by 80,000 people and presented 700 startups. The cluster’s chief executive Magzhan Madiyev named as events of the year the Digital Qazaqstan forum in Shymkent, the AI & Digital Bridge 2026 forum in Astana and the GITEX AI Kazakhstan exhibition, held in the country for the first time. These are the cluster’s own figures and have not been independently checked.
The second example is rural connectivity. On 4 November the ministry and Kazakhtelecom signed a memorandum under the project “Accelerated Digitalization for an Inclusive Economy of Kazakhstan”: optical lines will be built in more than 1,000 rural settlements, the ministry said. The project’s backbone infrastructure, “Rural Fibre 1.0”, was built in 2018–2020 by Kazakhtelecom and Transtelecom; Kazakhtelecom will now open access to it for local small and medium operators so they can deploy last-mile networks on GPON technology at speeds of at least 100 Mbit/s. The report gives no deadlines or costs.
Digitalization is under way inside companies too. At KazTransOil, the company said, a Directorate of Digitalization and Information Technology was created on 1 May 2026: it is responsible for uninterrupted operation of digital infrastructure and support of information systems. And on 5 November the ministry signed a memorandum with Hyundai Motor Company on cooperation in smart cities, AI, robotics and physical AI; pilots are being considered in Almaty and Alatau, the ministry said.
An international assessment is also coming. The previous UN e-government ranking placed Kazakhstan 24th of 193, and the next, fifteenth, edition of the survey is expected in 2026; the exact release date has not been confirmed.
What it means: On Digitalization Day the country sees the year’s results in figures named by the participants themselves: the Astana Hub ecosystem, the rural fibre project and corporate directorates. The state’s own assessment of the year, above all the number of services on eGov and the size of spending, is absent from these reports.
Who benefits: Rural residents, provided the fibre is actually laid and operators connect homes; the report gives no deadline. IT companies in the Astana Hub ecosystem: the cluster names their revenue and exports. Corporations that create digital directorates to manage production processes.
Background: GPON is a technology in which an optical cable runs from the operator to the home; the “last mile” is the stretch of network from the operator’s node to the subscriber. Astana Hub is an international technopark for IT startups created in Astana in 2018; the cluster marks its eighth anniversary in 2026.
