How Kazakhstan Wrote Its Security Service Into the AI Business

Securitization of digital infrastructure is not new, nor is the involvement of national security agencies therein. These phenomena have become quite common and don’t surprise anyone, especially as cybersecurity threats become more dangerous and sophisticated following the adoption of AI for hostile purposes.

In May 2026, Presidential Decree No. 1258 vested the National Security Committee (KNB) of the Republic of Kazakhstan with additional responsibilities, including in the digital domain. Largely construed as routine modernization efforts, the KNB’s new responsibilities may not have attracted much scrutiny and may have therefore flown under public’s radar, as security agencies worldwide play an increasingly bigger role in cybersecurity.

Buried in the bureaucratic language of Decree No. 1258 are three clauses that go well beyond routine oversight. Together, they don’t just make the KNB a “watchdog” over digitalization, but also give it the legal standing to become a direct participant in Kazakhstan’s AI buildout, with the authority to draw private industry into its orbit.

Section 14 now enables the KNB to develop, purchase, and operate, among others, digital systems, armament, and equipment and – for these purposes – to sign contracts with state bodies and organizations of the Republic of Kazakhstan regardless of ownership form, with special services, and with organizations of foreign states. In Section 15, Clauses 224-2 and 224-3 vest the KNB with the responsibility to execute the state’s AI policy and the authority to develop and deploy artificial intelligence models and software products. 

On the surface, these clauses point at data and critical infrastructure protection efforts, and some may even be tempted to attribute these new responsibilities to a growing problem with data leaks in Kazakhstan. While leaks – such as the July 2025 breach that exposed the personal data of 16 million Kazakhstani citizens, an investigation that the KNB was tasked to lead – deserve government intervention, all the clauses combined hint at something else, too: a potential military-civil fusion in Kazakhstan’s digital sector. 

The first and the last clauses mentioned above combined may lay the groundwork of military-civil fusion, a term coined by the Chinese Communist Party for eliminating the line between a country’s civilian tech sector and its military and security apparatus in order to advance both economic and security development. Now that the KNB can legally contract private agencies and develop AI models and software, the agency finds itself with lots of opportunities to employ such tools in its operations. It’s difficult to speculate on the type of products that the security apparatus may wish to develop and deploy – be it an early warning system or open-source intelligence software. Whatever the product, private entities will jump at the chance to increase their collaboration with the security apparatus for at least one reason: Kazakhstan has already set the stage for rapid AI and digital development.

Incubators and accelerators like AlemAI and AstanaHub are already producing high-quality AI and tech startups. That means that there’s sufficient human, technical, and financial capability in Kazakhstan to support and maintain these enterprises. Now imagine that with its new authority, the KNB becomes a novel procurement channel in its own right, joining the Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development and Ministry of Higher Education, alongside AlemAI, and AstanaHub. With its own budget and priorities, the KNB will join the list of potentially lucrative government clients. That alone is enough incentive for private companies to begin factoring the KNB’s interests into how they develop and market their products.

Some may argue that the KNB is capable of developing AI models and software itself. It likely is, in principle. But building a competitive AI research capacity from scratch takes years and a talent pool that already has other options – like the private sector with greater pay. Contracting an existing startup with working models is faster, cheaper, and lower-risk than building the same capability in-house. That said, the question is not about the capability per se but is rather about the division of labor. In a booming field like AI, both government and private companies have every incentive to collaborate.

Kazakhstan’s $10 billion data center pact with Nvidia and Firebird, its OpenAI-backed education rollout, and Telegram’s new AI lab at AlemAI are proof of concept. Each shows that Kazakhstani companies and infrastructure can already execute large-scale AI and digital projects credibly enough to attract world-class partners. That track record is itself likely to spur further government funding into the sector, on the logic that money follows demonstrated capacity. 

And as a final twist, the KNB has its own direct stake in that growth: as this infrastructure expands, the agency may well need AI models and platforms of its own – an early warning system to flag threats to a data center, or software to monitor the digital infrastructure it is now charged with protecting – giving it yet another reason to develop and deploy the very technology this piece has described and yet another reason to collaborate with private companies. 

The KNB has emerged as a far stronger actor in Kazakhstan’s AI and digitalization landscape than its low public profile on the matter suggests. For policymakers and civil society, that means factoring a security agency’s institutional interests into a conversation on AI that has so far been dominated by ministries, hubs, and foreign investors. For AI vendors and startups, the new authority cuts the other way: it opens a genuine opportunity to collaborate with a well-resourced government client.

Whether this marks a watershed in and a designing feature of Kazakhstan’s AI economy will depend on how the KNB uses its new powers. The sequencing built into the Decree No. 1258 is itself worth noting. The authority to develop and deploy AI models took effect upon signature, while the KNB’s cybersecurity oversight didn’t take effect until July. That doesn’t look like a purely defensive mandate, and it is precisely the reason why stakeholders across government, industry, and civil society should keep tabs on how the KNB uses its new authority in Kazakhstan’s digital future.