Rosatom-led NPP construction in Kazakhstan to start this August

The ceremony for the commencement of construction of the first nuclear power plant (NPP), led by Russia’s Rosatom, is scheduled for Aug. 8 near the village of Ulken in the Zhambyl district of the Almaty region, according to the company Kazakhstan Nuclear Power Plants (KNPP).

«On Aug. 8, 2025, near the village of Ulken in the Zhambyl district of the Almaty region, an official ceremony will be held to mark the launch of the nuclear power plant construction project in Kazakhstan,» according to a media advisory.

The ceremony will include official speeches and the start of drilling operations to collect soil samples, which will later be formally handed over to the Russian side for study.

KNPP — a state-owned company under the Samruk-Kazyna holding and the operator of all future NPPs in Kazakhstan — was placed under the trust management of the Agency for Atomic Energy.

Rosatom was previously selected to lead an international consortium for the construction of the first NPP, with a capacity of 2.4 gigawatts, near Lake Balkhash. According to Kazakhstan’s Agency for Atomic Energy, it could be commissioned between 2035 and 2036. In late June, the agency’s head, Almassadam Satkaliyev, said the cost of the first NPP would be at least $14 billion. A second plant is slated for construction by China’s nuclear energy giant CNNC, and Kazakhstan’s First Deputy Minister Roman Sklyar has suggested it could be built faster than the Rosatom-led project.