Smart Cities on the Steppe: Can Astana and New Tashkent Deliver on the Hype?

Smart Cities on the Steppe: Can Astana and New Tashkent Deliver on the Hype?

Central Asia's two largest capitals are staking their futures on artificial intelligence. Astana, Kazakhstan's gleaming purpose-built metropolis, and New Tashkent, Uzbekistan's urban reinvention project, are both racing to deploy AI-powered^✦ governance, biometric systems, and hyperscale data infrastructure at a pace that would make Silicon Valley pause. But beneath the glossy vision of "smart cities" lies a harder question: can either nation actually deliver on the grand promises, or are they building monuments to technological optimism?

The gap between aspiration and reality in Central Asia's smart city ambitions reveals something fundamental about how emerging markets are approaching the AI transition. Both nations are investing heavily in the plumbing, data centres, 5G networks, biometric systems, but the question of whether citizens will actually feel the difference remains stubbornly unresolved.

The Astana Blueprint: Ambition Meets Infrastructure

Astana's smart city ambitions centre on a single institution: Alem.ai. This eight-storey complex in the capital's downtown represents the physical manifestation of Kazakhstan's AI strategy. The first floor serves as a public-facing museum and education centre. Levels two and three house creative tech courses for teenagers. Floors four and five deliver adult AI schooling. The sixth floor hosts a startup incubator, the seventh dedicated R&D laboratories, and the eighth floor houses the AI government operations centre.

What makes Alem.ai noteworthy isn't just the hardware; it's the deliberate emphasis on technology transfer. Presight Kazakhstan, the state-backed AI institute, employs over 50 specialists explicitly tasked with moving knowledge from theory into local industry application. Kazakhstan's authorities have mandated that 60 per cent of suppliers for the smart city project come from domestic sources, a protectionist move that reflects both economic nationalism and the genuine absence of sufficient local AI talent at scale^✦.

Behind Alem.ai sits Alem.Cloud, Central Asia's first supercomputing cluster. Equipped with NVIDIA H200 processors and ranking 86th on the TOP500 global list, the system is designed to support AI applications across education, healthcare, and agriculture.

The infrastructure push extends beyond the capital. Kazakhstan has commissioned three new data centres with a combined capacity of 12.9 megawatts, part of a broader push to achieve 100 per cent 5G coverage in twenty major cities. The government has already reached 99 per cent internet coverage nationally, meaning the connectivity layer is largely in place. Even remote border crossings and transport hubs are set to receive Direct-to-Cell satellite internet.

Every citizen must feel the practical effect of this work.

Uzbekistan's Parallel Path: MyID and the Digital State

Uzbekistan is taking a different trajectory, centred on biometric identification rather than centralised data hubs. The MyID system has enrolled 14.5 million citizens in a unified biometric identity framework. This system operates as the backbone of Uzbekistan's digital state: mandatory biometric verification for mobile SIM cards, automated OneID registration, and integration across government services.

Where Astana emphasises computational prowess and public education, Uzbekistan emphasises identification and integration. Two different visions of what "smart" means in practice. The approach has drawn comparisons to how AI agents are being embedded into everyday Chinese appliances: quietly, deeply, and in ways citizens barely notice until the old way feels impossible.

The Reality Check: Promise Versus Delivery

Here is where the narrative begins to fracture. Astana and New Tashkent are building genuinely impressive infrastructure. The numbers are real. The processing power exists. The networks are deployed. Yet none of this guarantees that a bus passenger in either city will experience noticeably better public transport, that a farmer in rural Kazakhstan will see improved yields from AI-driven^✦ agricultural advisory, or that a doctor in Tashkent will have diagnostic tools that materially improve patient outcomes.

Both nations are attempting to compress decades of digital change into a single decade. They are building the hardware and governance layer without yet proving the software layer, the actual applications that citizens interact with, will function at scale. The ASEAN region's readiness gap illustrates a similar challenge: training millions doesn't automatically translate to real-world AI deployment.

What Success Actually Looks Like

The biometric emphasis across both nations also raises a governance question rarely addressed in smart city marketing materials. Central Asia is not known for robust^✦ privacy protection or civilian oversight of surveillance systems. When a government controls not only the ID system but also the AI systems that analyse that data, the potential for mission creep is substantial.

For Astana and New Tashkent, "smart city" status cannot rest solely on data centre rankings or biometric enrolment numbers. Success requires demonstrable improvements in:

• Public transport efficiency and passenger experience
• Healthcare diagnostic accuracy and treatment outcomes
• Agricultural productivity and farmer income
• Government service delivery speed and transparency
• Energy efficiency and grid optimisation
• Public safety without mission creep or overreach

The two capitals are worth watching precisely because they are not attempting incremental digital change. They are trying to leapfrog, building 21st-century governance infrastructure in nations where the baseline digital maturity remains uneven. That same boldness that explains why their ambitions are impressive also explains why the risks of failure are proportional.

Compare this to how Samsung is embedding AI companions into everyday life across Asia: the technology works best when it's invisible and genuinely useful, not when it's a showcase project. Singapore's AI readiness investment offers another model, one where infrastructure spending is paired with structured citizen engagement rather than top-down deployment.

We demonstrate our ambitions through projects like ALEM AI.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Alem.ai and why does it matter?

Alem.ai is an eight-storey facility in Astana that combines a public AI museum, education programmes for teens and adults, a startup incubator, R&D laboratories, and the AI government operations centre. It matters because it represents Kazakhstan's attempt to centralise AI talent development and deployment in a single institution.

How many people are enrolled in Uzbekistan's MyID system?

14.5 million Uzbek citizens are enrolled in the MyID biometric identification system, which serves as the backbone for digital governance, mandatory biometric SIM verification, and government service integration.

What is Alem.Cloud and what does its TOP500 ranking mean?

Alem.Cloud is Central Asia's first supercomputing cluster, equipped with NVIDIA H200 processors and ranked 86th globally on the TOP500 list. This ranking indicates it is among the world's fastest supercomputers, capable of supporting complex AI workloads across education, healthcare, and agriculture.

What is the biggest risk these smart cities face?

The biggest risk is that the technical infrastructure, data centres, networks, biometric systems, will remain disconnected from actual citizen benefit. Without robust governance frameworks, privacy protections, and demonstrable improvements in services like transport, healthcare, and education, smart cities risk becoming expensive monuments to technological ambition rather than functional improvements in quality of life.

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