USAID to upgrade Kazakhstan tax service’s hardware

U.S. Ambassador to Kazakhstan Daniel Rosenblum and USAID have transferred state-of-the-art server machines to the State Revenue Committee (SRC) under Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Finance to improve the country’s customs infrastructure, the U.S. Embassy in Kazakhstan said in a statement on its website.  

“USAID is supplying advanced servers made by Dell Inc. of the United States to support the SRC’s new customs “Keden” IT system which replaces the outdated “Astana-1″ system. The new Keden system will reduce clearance times and enhance data security by leveraging automation, machine learning and artificial intelligence,” the embassy stated.

Rosenblum pointed out that the servers are supposed to replace outdated low-performance equipment.

Ambassador Rosenblum emphasized the shared vision between the United States and Kazakhstan for a transparent and secure trade environment as Kazakhstan secures its position as a leading regional trade hub.

Media have previously reported that the government of the Republic of Kazakhstan intends to introduce AI to the national administration, healthcare, education, finance, logistics, agriculture and industry.

An open online educational course for AI is set to launch in September 2024 as part of the Concept for Artificial Intelligence Development for 2024–2029. The government aims for more than 80,000 people to complete the course before the end of 2029.  In this and next year, applied-research AI labs at universities are expected to be set up. Additionally, plans include launching an AI-focused high school on the foundation of one of the universities and introducing new bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer vision, machine learning and natural language processing.