Amina Baikenova, Acting Deputy Director of Product and External Affairs of the Institute of Smart Systems and Artificial Intelligence (ISSAI) at Nazarbayev University, participated as a speaker in the session “Kazakhstan 2035: The Future of Artificial Intelligence — Foresight Findings and Strategic Decisions” at AI & Digital Bridge 2026.
The session brought together experts to discuss Kazakhstan’s long-term AI development, potential future scenarios and the foundations needed to build a sustainable national AI ecosystem.
Amina Baikenova joined an international group of speakers, including K. S. Venkatraman, former Senior Director for AI Computing at NVIDIA; Geoffrey Okao, Chief Digital Officer at UNICEF; Olaf J. Groth, Founder and CEO of Cambrian Futures; and Sofiya Yuvshanova, UNICEF Regional Programme Evaluation Specialist. The discussion was moderated by Miles Hastie, who leads UNICEF’s responsible AI work.
Discussing Kazakhstan’s infrastructure and development opportunities, Amina presented a potential path for moving further up the AI value chain: Energy → Compute → AI → Products → Exports. She emphasised that strong energy and computing infrastructure can provide a foundation for developing AI technologies locally and creating products with potential beyond the domestic market.
Looking toward 2035, Amina identified several “no-regret” priorities for Kazakhstan: talent, compute, local data, research capacity and responsible AI governance. These capabilities can provide a foundation for continued AI development as technologies and applications evolve.
The session highlighted the importance of Kazakhstan developing not only the capacity to adopt AI, but also the research, infrastructure, talent and products needed to create AI technologies locally. A key message from the discussion was that Kazakhstan should not simply be a place where AI is used, it should increasingly become a place where AI is built.