Central Asian governments are rushing to join the global AI race. And they're going big.

NVIDIA has partnered with US infrastructure firm Firebird and Kazakhtelecom on Data Center Valley, a project in Kazakhstan billed as Central Asias largest AI infrastructure development.

Uzbekistan is pursuing similar ambitions under its Digital Uzbekistan 2030 strategy, offering tax and customs exemptions through 2040 for qualifying data-center investments. And Tajikistan announced plans in October for a regional AI innovation hub supported by US chipmaker Nvidias Global AI Nations program.

Critics of Central Asias AI ambitions, however, have flagged shaky financing, reliance on coal-fired power in countries already facing electricity shortfalls, and a lack of transparency in a region long plagued by corruption.

Data Center Valley

With an announced price tag of $10 billion for its initial rollout, backers of Data Center Valley say it will turn Kazakhstan into a major exporter of AI computing power. When then-Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang visited Astana in October, he said the initial expansion of the project could eventually reach 1 gigawatt (GW) of power capacity for servers and equipment, with longer-term ambitions of up to 5 GW.

During a televised conversation with Kazakh Deputy Prime Minister and Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development Minister Zhaslan Madiyev, Huang presented the country as ideally placed to become a major player in the global AI industry.

While the rest of the world is deciding how to engage and how to build an AI economy, here in Kazakhstan, you are doing it already," Huang said. "Kazakhstan has a fundamental advantage because you have so much natural resources already and you have so much energy. Instead of just exporting energy in the future, you could transform the energy into intelligence and export intelligence."