Kazakhstan
Inside Kazakhstan's push to become a regional AI centre
Inside Kazakhstan's push to become a regional AI centre Share Inside Kazakhstan's push to become a regional AI centre on social media A young woman in a sleek bun and a jacket with Kazakh patterns smiles from the screen at a directors' meeting of Samruk-Kazyna, Kazakhstan's sovereign wealth fund. In late 2025, she became the company's newest board member. In Kazakhstan, AI is the new talk of the town, and part of its new branding and modernisation agenda to improve public services, attract investment and diversify the economy beyond reliance on raw materials. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev declared 2026 the "Year of Digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence" to introduce advanced technologies in all sectors of the economy, develop skills, startups and Kazakh-language technologies. In 2025, the government created a Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development, and last month, it approved an action plan through 2029 that includes promoting AI literacy in schools and universities, digitalising healthcare, public services, tax collection and the energy sector.
Meet the Gods of AI Warfare
In its early days, the AI initiative known as Project Maven had its fair share of skeptics at the Pentagon. Today, many of them are true believers. The rise of AI warfare speaks to the biggest moral and practical question there is: Who--or what--gets to decide to take a human life? And who bears that cost? In 2018, more than 3,000 Google workers protested the company's involvement in "the business of war" after finding out the company was part of Project Maven, then a nascent Pentagon effort to use computer vision to rifle through copious video footage taken in America's overseas drone wars. They feared Project Maven's AI could one day be used for lethal targeting. In my yearslong effort to uncover the full story of Project Maven for my book,, I learned that is exactly what happened, and that the undertaking was just as controversial inside the Pentagon. Today, the tool known as Maven Smart System is being used in US operations against Iran . How the US military's top brass moved from skepticism about the use of AI in war to true believers has a lot to do with a Marine colonel named Drew Cukor. In early September 2024, during the cocktail hour at a private retreat for tech investors and defense leaders, Vice Admiral Frank "Trey" Whitworth found his way to Drew Cukor. Now Project Maven's founding leader and his skeptical successor were standing face-to-face. Three years earlier, Whitworth had been the Pentagon's top military official for intelligence, advising the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and running one of the most sensitive and potentially lethal parts of any military process: targeting.
Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,421
Could Ukraine hold a presidential election right now? Will Europe use frozen Russian assets to fund war? How can Ukraine rebuild China ties? 'Ukraine is running out of men, money and time' Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that a state of emergency was being declared for Ukraine's energy sector, after repeated Russian attacks destroyed electricity and heat infrastructure. Zelenskyy said he asked the government to review curfew restrictions during "this extremely cold weather".