Countries / Asia-Pacific and Middle East
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan has an AI law and a Digital Code, a national H200 supercomputer in the world top 100 and a gigawatt-scale data centre planned in Pavlodar.
Kazakhstan declared 2026 the Year of Digitalization and AI and created a Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development. The government says it was the first country in Central Asia to adopt an AI law, and the Digital Code was signed on 9 January 2026. The national supercomputer Alem.Cloud, based on NVIDIA H200 chips, ranked 86th on the TOP500 list in November 2025. A gigawatt-scale data centre project is being developed in Pavlodar Region, the government says, citing cheap electricity. For someone seeking compute, Alem.Cloud accepts applications from companies, and the Pavlodar project is a plan.
AI policy and activity
The Law on AI uses minimum, medium and high risk categories with risk management, documentation and labelling duties on owners and users, per a law-firm digest. A unified strategy, Digital Qazaqstan, was being drafted as of February 2026.
Power and grid
The government describes electricity in Pavlodar as affordable, with no capacity, connection or reliability figures given in the sources read.
Data centres and compute
| Site | Where | Status | Notes and source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alem.Cloud national supercomputer National Information Technologies (NIT), Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development | Kazakhstan (site not stated on the pages read) | Operating | Primary. Prime Minister's office: NVIDIA H200 based, TOP500 rank 86. Kapital.kz (18 November 2025) quotes the ministry on the HPL benchmark. An academic cluster, Al-Farabium, is also operating. (source) |
| Pavlodar gigawatt-scale data centre project Not stated | Pavlodar Region | Planned | Primary, aspirational. Government says it is being developed because of affordable electricity and a suitable climate; no operator, capacity schedule or financing was read. (source) |
Rules and programmes
| Instrument | Kind | Status | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Law on Artificial Intelligence (No. 230-VIII) | Law | In force | Primary for the claim that the law has been adopted. Details from a Mondaq law-firm digest (February 2026), which gives entry into force as 18 January with the year printed as 2025; the year looks like a typo and is unconfirmed, so effective_on is null. |
| Digital Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan | Law | In force from 11 July 2026 | Primary for the 9 January 2026 signature. The 11 July 2026 start date comes from the Mondaq digest (https://www.mondaq.com/new-technology/1747002/the-year-of-digitalisation-and-ai-in-kazakhstan-new-regulations). |
| Year of Digitalization and AI decree | Policy | In force from 6 January 2026 | Reported. Law-firm digest: President signed a decree on 6 January 2026. |
Checked on 2 October 2026 and due for review by 1 January 2027. Many sources are trade press or law-firm summaries rather than official texts, and statuses such as reported or unconfirmed are shown as the source gives them. This is a summary, not legal advice. If something is wrong or out of date, tell us.