The U.S.-backed "small circle" excluding China: Kazakhstan becomes the first country in the region to formally join the U.S.-led Pax Silica international initiative
From Kazinform News Agency: Kazakhstan has officially become the first country in Central Asia to join the international initiative Pax Silica (Silicon Peace).
Deputy Prime Minister of the Kazakh Government and Minister for Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development, Zhasulan Madiyev, signed on behalf of Kazakhstan the "Declaration of the Republic of Kazakhstan's Participation in the Pax Silica Initiative" and the "Joint Statement on the Partnership of Opportunities in Artificial Intelligence."
With the formal signing of these documents, Kazakhstan has officially become a member of this international technology alliance. The alliance currently brings together 15 countries and regions: Australia, UAE, Finland, Philippines, South Korea, Qatar, Greece, India, Israel, Japan, Norway, Singapore, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and Taiwan, China.
Pax Silica is an international technological cooperation initiative centered on building trustworthy supply chains for the next-generation artificial intelligence economy, with a focus on international collaboration in areas such as artificial intelligence, critical minerals, semiconductors, data centers, energy infrastructure, high-tech manufacturing, scientific innovation, and talent development.
Kazakhstan’s accession to Pax Silica aligns closely with President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s national digital development strategy. In recent years, Kazakhstan has been advancing its construction of a digital nation and has identified artificial intelligence as a key driver for economic transformation, enhancing national governance capabilities, promoting scientific and technological innovation, education development, and industrial modernization.
For Kazakhstan, joining Pax Silica opens new opportunities to attract international investment, expand technological cooperation, develop high-tech manufacturing, and further strengthen its position in global supply chains.
At the same time, Kazakhstan will also bring significant strategic advantages to the initiative, including abundant critical mineral resources, ample energy security, a strategically important geographic location connecting Europe and Asia, a continuously improving digital infrastructure, a rapidly developing IT industry ecosystem, and a clear, well-defined national AI development strategy.
One of the key future cooperation directions between both sides will be advancing the deep processing of critical minerals and the development of high-value-added industries. Kazakhstan aims to gradually move beyond its traditional raw material export model toward higher value segments of the industrial chain, focusing on manufacturing components and products required by high-tech sectors such as batteries, semiconductors, energy storage systems, and artificial intelligence infrastructure.
Meanwhile, the U.S. government has also signed a memorandum of understanding with Stanford University, planning to establish a network of Foundry Schools (wafer academies) in countries participating in the Pax Silica initiative. This project aims to cultivate highly skilled professionals serving the high-tech industry, with a focus on cutting-edge fields such as computational materials science, the application of artificial intelligence in industrial and mineral resource development, engineering technologies, and digital technologies.
After joining Pax Silica, Kazakhstan is expected to gain increased support for infrastructure and high-tech project financing, creating more favorable conditions for the implementation of the country’s key national projects.
The "Joint Statement on the Partnership of Opportunities in Artificial Intelligence" outlines three major areas of future cooperation.
First, supporting the creation of an innovative regulatory environment conducive to the development of the artificial intelligence industry, enabling continuous growth of AI enterprises, startups, developers, and cloud computing platforms.
Second, further deepening cooperation in areas such as AI research and development, energy and computing power infrastructure construction, development and utilization of critical minerals, talent cultivation, and joint promotion of AI technologies.
Third, actively mobilizing private sector involvement to advance developments in venture capital, R&D collaboration, next-generation data center construction, sharing of computing power resources, and trustworthy AI models.
In addition, the initiative will further enhance Kazakhstan’s talent development capacity through joint educational and research programs with world-class universities. These collaborations are expected to cover multiple key fields, including computational materials science, applications of artificial intelligence in mining and resource processing, data security, data center engineering, industrial AI, and high-tech manufacturing.
This participation in Pax Silica represents a significant step for Kazakhstan in implementing the head of state’s vision for advancing digital transformation and accelerating AI development, and marks another important milestone in the country’s ongoing efforts to deepen international scientific and technological cooperation and drive high-tech industrial upgrading.
Original source: toutiao.com/article/1869135573058636/
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