Digital Ministry reveals details about supercomputer project
The Ministry of Digital Development, Innovations and Aerospace Industry plans to lease or acquire the infrastructure necessary for the creation of a supercomputer. The cost of the project is still the subject of discussion.
According to the Digital Ministry, the main purpose of the supercomputer is to facilitate the development of artificial intelligence (AI) in Kazakhstan. The new AI system is necessary for the creation of Kaz LLM (large language model) and might be used in different economic sectors such as IT, finance, healthcare, energy and manufacturing. Currently, the ministry is trying to launch close cooperation with tech companies and research institutes to create the necessary infrastructure.
«When we talk about the creation of the infrastructure, we in particular mean leasing and purchasing computing capacity in specially designed data processing centers (DPC). We need this before we go any further with the development of AI in Kazakhstan. However, there are several startups and mature businesses that are involved in the implementation of AI such as Cerebra, ForUS.Data, GoatChat.AI, Higgsfield AI, AI Labs and Sergek Group, among others,» the ministry told Kursiv.media. It didn’t specify whether it is going to collaborate with the aforementioned companies.
The government will decide on the volume of computing resources after an analysis of the needs of public agencies, universities, scientists and the business community. The cost of access to the supercomputer for Kazakhstan’s residents and the financial details of the project are still being discussed.
The Digital Ministry is going to coordinate the efforts of all participants of the project, although National Information Technologies, JSC (NIT, a subsidiary of Samruk Kazyna) has been designated as the operator of the national AI platform.
Last week, the media reported that the ministry, Samruk Kazyna and Presight AI from Abu Dhabi agreed to cooperate in the creation of a high-performance supercomputer (technological infrastructure) in Kazakhstan.
From a technical point of view, a supercomputer is a high-capacity computing machine capable of processing huge volumes of data and conducting millions of computing operations per second. At the initial stage, the project will rely on the computing capacity of an existing DPC run by NIT. In the second stage, they will build a new DPC with significant computing capacity that will make it possible for Kazakhstan to lease its computing capacity to neighboring countries.
In early February, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev announced the start of the supercomputer project. He said that he does not doubt that the project «will give big momentum to more broad use of big data.»
“Data is akin to fuel in terms of artificial intelligence. It is crucial to ensure both free access to data and its security. We need to aggregate anonymized data from both public and private sectors by introducing a unified data management architecture,” he added.
In December 2023, President Tokayev claimed that he would personally oversee the creation of a national AI. Earlier that year, Digital Minister Bagdat Musin reported discussions with NVIDIA Regional Manager Anton Dzhoraev and announced the establishment of an AI Academy where Kazakhstani and Central Asian students can acquire basic AI skills.
