The government of Kazakhstan has signed an agreement with Presight AI to build a supercomputer in the country.
The agreement is a continuation of discussions that have previously been held between the government of Kazakhstan and UAE-based Presight.
Founded in 2020, Presight provides big data and AI software services across a number of verticals including public sector, finance, utilities, and education. Its parent company is G42, an Abu Dhabi-based artificial intelligence and cloud computing company whose chair, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed al-Nahyan, has reportedly held discussions with OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman about investing in the exec’s rumored AI chip venture.
In late 2023, the government entered into talks with Presight about a potential partnership between the company and the country’s Samruk-Kazyna Sovereign Wealth Fund for the development of Kazakhstan’s digital infrastructure.
According to a report in Kazakh news outlet Astana Times, the supercomputer project will unfold in two phases. The first will see the necessary compute power integrate with existing e-government infrastructure, while the second phase will involve the construction of a new data processing center.
No information was made available about the specifications of the supercomputer.
In comments reported by the outlet, Bagdat Mussin, Kazakh minister of digital development, innovation, and aerospace industry, spoke of the importance of the country completing the development of its own LLM for use by startups, institutes, and research centers.
Mussin also said that the launch of the supercomputer will significantly benefit the development of the financial services, healthcare, energy, and manufacturing industries.