How AI Is Helping Government Companies in Kazakhstan Cut Costs and Improve Efficiency

Kazakhstan's government companies are prime beneficiaries of a fast-moving digital overhaul: AI and digital public infrastructure (DPI) are already speeding e‑services, cutting shadow-economy leakage and saving budget funds - Astana Times reports a total economic effect of 51.3 billion tenge with public services delivered on average 20x faster and 92% of services online - so routine processes like school transfers now take one day instead of five, a vivid sign of real savings.

These gains rest on DPI building blocks - biometric digital ID, instant payments and bank-led e‑government integration - mapped in the CSIS analysis of Kazakhstan's DPI journey, which shows how public‑private partnerships and open APIs lower transaction costs and expand access.

At the same time, reporting warns of cybersecurity breaches and a skills gap that demand audited rollouts and workforce retraining before widescale automation can be safely scaled.

“I have already spoken about accelerating the creation of a unified national digital ecosystem,” Tokayev said.

In Kazakhstan, “AI” is the set of tools - from machine‑learning models and automated content generators to rule‑based bots - that power faster, more accurate public services, while “digital public infrastructure” (DPI) is the data and platform layer that makes those tools usable at scale: a National AI Platform, shared datasets and pre‑trained Kazakh models, APIs and government systems that let services interoperate.

Practical training programs show how AI is applied for policy automation, fraud detection and citizen services, and a recent Astana workshop taught press officers to use AI for text, video and public‑opinion analysis to make communications clearer and faster.

Regulation is catching up too: a draft 2025 law proposes risk tiers, liability rules and data safeguards even as the National AI Platform and a Kazakh‑language model (trained on 148 billion tokens) expand capacity.

On the implementation side, banks and agencies are already using Python RPA and OCR to automate tedious work - one robot now processes 2,000 documents a day, replacing what would have required 13 people - a concrete sign of how DPI + AI turn policy ambition into measurable time and cost savings.

Nemko overview of Kazakhstan AI framework and National AI Platform and Otbasy Bank case study: Python RPA and OCR intelligent automation.

“Our projects bring real reductions in timelines, eliminate unnecessary procedures, and create convenient services.”

Kazakhstan's AI push is being steered by a tight constellation of public institutions and fast‑moving programs: the Digital Government Support Center (DGSC) acts as the analytical and project hub reengineering thousands of processes, the newly formed Digital Headquarters (a cross‑ministerial digital transformation group) coordinates AI rollouts across health, governance and productivity, and the Ministry of Digital Development - with plans to spin up a dedicated AI ministry - anchors policy, infrastructure and regulation.

Together they link national assets like the Alem.AI center, Central Asia's new supercomputer cluster and eGov platforms with talent programs (Tech Orda, AI Qyzmet) and startup engines such as Astana Hub and the Qazaqstan Venture Group, creating a pipeline from research to production.

The result is institutional depth plus practical projects - mobile apps and registries that cut processing from weeks to days - while international advisory bodies and draft laws aim to keep adoption accountable.

Read the DGSC's project overview in the DGSC project overview - Astana Times and the Digital Headquarters briefing at Digital Headquarters briefing - DIG.watch for details on how these institutions collaborate to embed AI across Kazakhstan's public sector.

“Our projects bring real reductions in timelines, eliminate unnecessary procedures, and create convenient services.”

Process reengineering in Kazakhstan's public sector is moving beyond pilot projects into measurable time and cost savings: the Digital Government Support Center has mapped and rebuilt customer journeys across thousands of services, turning complex paper trails into one‑click flows and practical automation that frees staff for higher‑value work.

Real examples show the payoff - an accident‑reporting mobile app cut insurance payouts from 40 days to five, online drone registration slashed processing from 30 to 10 business days, and a digitized mobilization registry now handles proactive deferments for medically exempt citizens - outcomes driven by careful process mapping, AI‑enabled triage and pragmatic RPA. These initiatives are now coordinated through the newly formed Digital Headquarters to scale safe integration of AI across health, transport and public administration (see the DGSC Demo Day overview and the Digital Headquarters launch for implementation details).

“Our projects bring real reductions in timelines, eliminate unnecessary procedures, and create convenient services.”

Concrete, repeatable wins are already piling up across Kazakhstan: the Astana Times notes a national total economic effect of 51.3 billion tenge with public services delivered 20x faster and 92% of services online, while routine tasks - school transfers that once took five days or teacher qualification upgrades that took months - now complete in days or weeks, a striking example of time turned into value (Astana Times report on Kazakhstan's AI-driven digital transformation).

Health and social systems show measurable budget effects too: telemedicine handled 1.5 million services and helped save roughly 13 billion tenge, and digitized welfare channels cut shadow transactions by 7.5 billion tenge.

In insurance and claims, on‑scene FNOL and telematics-style crash reconstruction shrink cycle times and curb fraud - commercial vendors' AI video damage evaluation and automated FNOL pipelines illustrate how faster evidence and automated triage translate directly into lower payouts and faster settlements (OCTO Telematics crash and claims management solutions for insurers).

The “so what” is plain: one automation can let a single robot process 2,000 documents a day - work that used to need a dozen people - turning staff time savings into faster service and real budgetary relief.

Kazakhstan's AI backbone is rapidly taking shape around the Alem.cloud supercomputing centre in Astana - a two‑exaflop powerhouse capable of roughly two quintillion (10^18) floating‑point operations per second - built to power e‑government services and train homegrown models like AlemLLM (Alem.cloud supercomputer launch report).

Developed with international partners and a Presight partnership that brought Gulf‑region expertise to the project, the cluster uses NVIDIA H200‑class performance to accelerate large‑scale model work and smart‑city pilots while Tier‑III data‑centre hosting aims to keep sensitive citizen data tightly controlled (Presight partnership and system details for the Alem.cloud supercomputer).

Still, the machine's promise depends on people: experts warn that brain drain and shortages of HPC, cybersecurity and model‑ops talent must be tackled through local training pipelines so the supercomputer delivers practical gains - from radiology and wildfire detection to streamlined e‑services - rather than merely prestige value (AlemLLM local use cases and applications).

“Kazakhstan's experts and politicians alike believe that without its own localised solutions and infrastructure, no country in the future will be successful, or even independent and sovereign.”

Kazakhstan has driven down transaction costs by weaving together secure digital ID, interoperable payment rails and bank-led channels so payments become the on‑ramp to public services and commerce: online banking climbed from about 25% in 2018 to nearly 100% by 2024, digital transactions rose from 7% to 89% in the same period, and a unified QR code handled some 2.1 billion transactions in the first eight months of 2024 - a striking, bottom‑line proof that small frictions add up when removed.

Open‑API pilots and bank superapps mean citizens can authenticate with biometrics via eGov and pay without switching screens, while the National Bank's Instant Payment System (launched June 2022) and a piloted Digital Tenge CBDC expand low‑cost, real‑time rails and cross‑border possibilities; together these public‑private moves create network effects that shrink per‑transaction costs for merchants and government alike.

Policy choices - competition-friendly rules, regulatory sandboxes and a dedicated anti‑fraud center - reduce hidden risks while keeping prices low, and the CSIS case study on Kazakhstan's DPI and Visa's practical brief on identity‑payments synergies show how these design choices turn digital channels into measurable efficiency gains for citizens and state actors alike (CSIS analysis of Kazakhstan's digital public infrastructure (DPI), Visa Navigate CEMEA: building digital public infrastructure in Kazakhstan).

Kazakhstan's push to scale AI and DPI is delivering big efficiency wins, but recent breaches show the other side: in June a dataset covering roughly 16.3 million records - full names, IINs, addresses, phone numbers and other sensitive fields - was circulated online, a wake‑up call that much of the country's personal data can be reassembled from old leaks or internal access abuse (see the Times of Central Asia investigation into the June data leak).

Officials and analysts warn the threat isn't theoretical: more than 40 major incidents have been recorded this year, organised data‑markets and arrests of some 140 people underline the human and criminal vectors, and observers note shaky controls and a skills shortage that could let AI amplify harm, from identity theft to fake audio or video of public officials (read the Astana Times overview of national AI rollout risks).

Practical fixes are clear and practical - mandatory independent audits, continuous penetration testing, sectoral cyber centres, bug‑bounty programs, tighter rules on third‑party data sharing, and human‑in‑the‑loop guardrails for automated decisions - because trust and measurable safeguards will determine whether AI becomes a resilience builder or a “data‑breach time‑bomb.”

“This is one of the largest leaks. An investigation is currently underway. We are awaiting information from the technical service of the National Security Committee (KNB),”

For government companies in Kazakhstan the path from pilot to scale is practical and proven: start by aligning with the country's DPI playbook - use biometric digital ID and interoperable payment rails as the low‑friction on‑ramp, lean on public‑private partnerships and open‑API pilots to embed services into bank superapps, and deploy regulatory sandboxes and an Anti‑Fraud Center to test new offerings safely while keeping consumer protections front and center; the CSIS analysis shows these design choices drove mass adoption (the national QR handled 2.1 billion transactions in eight months) and created market-led solutions that scale (CSIS analysis: Building Digital Public Infrastructure lessons from Kazakhstan).

Pair technical adoption with people-first investments - expand AI literacy and the school pilot curriculum now rolling out with MIT support so workforces and citizens can use and supervise AI - and join focused acceleration programs that help industries implement applied models at pace (Kazakhstan AI education pilot and school connectivity - Prime Minister's Office, Industrial AI Acceleration program Kazakhstan).

“We have taught artificial intelligence to think, analyze, and communicate in Kazakh.”

Kazakhstan's public sector has proved the promise of DPI + AI: services are delivered 20× faster, 92% of public services are online and reforms show a total economic effect of 51.3 billion tenge, yet the next phase must be about disciplined scaling - tight audits, human‑in‑the‑loop safeguards, and a major skills push so sophisticated infrastructure like Alem.cloud and AlemLLM turns into sustained value rather than prestige.

That means hardening cyber defenses after high‑profile breaches (June's ~16.3 million‑record leak), copying proven pilots (telemedicine, e‑accident FNOL and QR payments) into sectoral playbooks, and investing in workforce readiness through focused courses - practical training such as Nucamp's 15‑week AI Essentials for Work can help civil servants learn prompt craft, tool use and safe deployment (register: Enroll in Nucamp AI Essentials for Work (15-week course)).

For a clear picture of the gains and policy framing that make this path possible, see the Astana Times roundup of Kazakhstan's AI‑driven digital transformation and reporting on rollout risks (Astana Times: Kazakhstan accelerates digital transformation with AI, blockchain and global tech ambitions, TimesCA: Kazakhstan pushes nationwide AI rollout amid cybersecurity risks and skills shortage).

“Our projects bring real reductions in timelines, eliminate unnecessary procedures, and create convenient services.”