Yandex Cloud has launched a new cloud region in Kazakhstan for businesses across Central Asia and Russia.
Russian tech company Yandex first launched its cloud platform in 2018, with a region in Russia. The company is now offering a second cloud region in Karaganda, Kazakhstan
The company said this step is part of the long-term development strategy of Yandex Cloud in Kazakhstan. The Kazakh server infrastructure has been placed in a local data center between Yandex’s two offices in Astana and Almaty.
It added that its Yandex SpeechKit service works in Kazakh and Uzbek languages and pricing is available in local currency.
Yandex Cloud said Kazakh businesses, such as Kolesa Group, HR Messenger, Bukhta, Demetra, and Technodom, already use Yandex cloud services.
Arystan Dzholdasbekov, director of Yandex Cloud in Kazakhstan, said: “Over the past few years, the demand for cloud technologies in Kazakhstan has been growing rapidly. The launch of a cloud platform based on a local data center is another step to be closer to our users in Kazakhstan and Central Asia.”
He added that offering a cloud region in Kazakhstan would strengthen the country’s IT investment opportunities. The company claims it has already issued grants to 74 Kazakh companies for cloud infrastructure, worth more than 160 million tenge ($356,000).
Yandex Cloud decommissioned one of its availability zones in the Russia cloud region in August last year.
While Yandex’s holding company, Yandex NV, is technically based in the Netherlands and most of its shareholders are based in the West, the company still has Russian ties and has been dubbed ‘Russia’s Google’ in the past.
Yandex had been looking for an exit strategy from Russia since the war in Ukraine began and sold its Russian assets earlier this year for $5.2 billion.
