SEOUL, August 05 (AJP) - More than 500 high school students from 106 countries began competing in Astana this week at the world's newest international science olympiad, hosted by a government that has spent the past year signing $10 billion in data center agreements and writing Central Asia's first artificial intelligence law.
The third International Olympiad in Artificial Intelligence runs through August 8. The second edition, held in Beijing last year, drew 300 students from 61 countries. The first was staged in Burgas, Bulgaria, in 2024.
President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev opened the competition on August 3 and used his remarks to link it to a target he set in his address to the nation last year, converting Kazakhstan into a fully digital state within three years.
"We are creating a unified innovation ecosystem in which artificial intelligence serves as an important tool for managing the state, the economy, and business, permeating all spheres of public life," Tokayev said. "But this is only the beginning of all processes."
He cited Kazakhstan's ranking of 24th out of 193 countries on the United Nations E-Government Development Index, a biennial assessment of how governments deliver services online. That placement comes from the survey published in 2024, built on data collected in 2022 and 2023, and the next edition has not been released. Kazakhstan also sits in the top 10 of the survey's online services measure, alongside South Korea, Denmark and Estonia.
Tokayev declared 2026 the Year of Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence. In September 2025, the government created a Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development, pulling AI out of a sub-portfolio and giving it cabinet rank.
Two months later, he signed a law on artificial intelligence that took force on January 18, making Kazakhstan the first country in Central Asia with a comprehensive AI statute. It sets obligations for developers, owners and users, and hands the ministry authority over a state-run National AI Platform that routes computing power to approved sectors of the economy.
The compute came online first. The Alem.Cloud supercomputer in Astana, commissioned in July 2025, runs on 512 Nvidia H200 graphics processors and ranks 86th on the TOP500 list of the world's most powerful machines. It is the largest in the region, and it trains the country's own large language models in Kazakh and Russian.
In June, Kazakhstan signed agreements worth $10 billion with Nvidia and the developer Firebird to build a data center campus near Ekibastuz, targeting a cluster of 100,000 graphics processors. Freedom Holding Corp. has separately agreed to develop a $2 billion sovereign AI hub using Nvidia infrastructure.
In January, Kazakhstan joined an OpenAI program that supplies 165,000 free ChatGPT Edu licenses to schoolteachers, university faculty and staff at the Astana Hub technology park. The government has set a goal of training one million people in AI skills over five years, covering students, civil servants and the existing workforce.
Tokayev framed the agenda as constitutionally anchored. The country's new constitution took effect on July 1, replacing the 1995 document after a referendum in March, and Tokayev said the development course built on innovation is written into it. Kazakhstan votes on August 23 for the Kurultai, the single-chamber parliament that the constitution created.
Speakers at the opening ceremony included Kai-Fu Lee, who runs the venture firm Sinovation Ventures and the model developer 01.AI, and Elena Marinova, who chairs the olympiad's international council. Kaspi.kz co-founder Mikhail Lomtadze and Freedom Holding chief executive Timur Turlov also spoke, as did Bagdat Mussin, who heads the Competitive Programming Federation of Kazakhstan and chairs Kazakhtelecom.
Tokayev was walked through the competition structure and the tasks students face, and was shown an autonomous robot in operation. Contestants compete in two areas, building AI models and programming autonomous robots, with medals awarded on individual scores across two days of six-hour sessions.
He closed by thanking the teachers who prepare the country's competitors.
"Last year, at the Artificial Intelligence Olympiad in Beijing, Kazakhstani schoolchildren won three gold, one silver, and three bronze medals," Tokayev said. "This is an achievement of which our country is rightfully proud, and it once again confirms the enormous intellectual and creative potential of our youth."
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AJP Takeaways
● Kassym-Jomart Tokayev opened the third International Olympiad in Artificial Intelligence in Astana on August 3, where more than 500 students from 106 countries are competing through August 8. He tied the event to his target of turning Kazakhstan into a fully digital state within three years.
● Nvidia and the developer Firebird signed agreements worth $10 billion with Kazakhstan in June to build a data center campus near Ekibastuz, targeting a cluster of 100,000 graphics processors. That deal, along with the July 2025 launch of the Alem.Cloud supercomputer, did not appear in the presidential press release on the olympiad.
● The Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development was created in September 2025, and a law on artificial intelligence took force on January 18, making Kazakhstan the first country in Central Asia with a comprehensive AI statute.
● The United Nations ranked Kazakhstan 24th out of 193 countries on its E-Government Development Index, the figure Tokayev cited in his remarks. That placement comes from the survey published in 2024 and built on data collected in 2022 and 2023.
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