Central Asian Startup Ecosystem: Weekly Insights & News, July 7-12

For investors, founders, and anyone interested in the Central Asian startup scene — here is a quick look at the top news from this week. We have gathered the key updates, from new launches to funding deals and industry moves across the region.

Kazakh IT project SAC has won the international WSIS Prizes 2025 competition. In 2025, a total of 973 projects from around the world were submitted. After the first round of selection, 360 projects across 18 categories were shortlisted. In the final round, only five projects remained in each category.

IT Park Uzbekistan will support startups in entering the European market through the Station F hub. Station F is the largest startup campus in Europe, located in Paris. The collaboration will open up new opportunities for Uzbekistani startups — from participating in international acceleration programs to entering the European market and attracting investment.

The President of Kazakhstan visited the National Supercomputing Center Alemcloud, where he took part in the launch ceremony of a new supercomputer powered by NVIDIA H200 GPUs.

The founder of CodiPlay presented a new project to the President of Kazakhstan — AI Kitap. It is a personalized AI assistant that analyzes what a student understands and where they struggle, selects tasks according to their level, explains mistakes, and even functions as a virtual AI mentor by offering hints and supporting motivation.

Kazakhstan ranked in the top 10 worldwide for digital public services. As of 2024, the country had over 18 000 IT companies and 187 000 specialists. By 2029, an additional 20 000 professionals are expected to be trained under the Tech Orda program.