The initiative
On 11 December 2024, after the presentation of the Alem.AI Artificial Intelligence Centre concept at Astana Hub, the President of Kazakhstan instructed that the phased implementation of AI-Sana be worked out. The programme is implemented by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of Kazakhstan.
Programme goal
To give students of applied fields — agriculture, water management, energy and others — extra competencies in artificial intelligence and AI entrepreneurship, with the option of deepening their knowledge step by step.
Graduates will be able to build their own startups to solve industry problems innovatively or apply their knowledge effectively at work. Special attention goes to DeepTech startups as a driver of Kazakhstan’s technological and economic growth.
AI-Sana combines educational, research and applied approaches and allows universities to move from a traditional educational format to a research-oriented one.
Programme in numbers
Programme data source: Ministry of Science and Higher Education of Kazakhstan, gov.kz ↗
Stages
Preparation stage
AI courses on Coursera, Huawei and Astana Hub for bachelor, master and PhD students: trends, fundamentals and applications across industries.
Stage 1
AI-based entrepreneurial skills, basic programming and machine learning.
Stage 2
Structuring student projects, scaling strategy and market orientation.
Stage 3
Pre-acceleration, acceleration and post-acceleration of startups: MVPs, business models, investment.
Priority areas
- Energy and sustainability
- Agro-industrial sector
- Education
- Talent development
AI agents demo platform
A demonstration platform with 24 AI agents for students, teachers, administration and business has been prepared for Auezov University: study plans, syllabi, quizzes, documents, analytics, translations and more. The agents reply in Kazakh, Russian and English.
- For students: applicant assistant, study planner, career navigator, coding mentor
- For teachers: syllabus builder, quiz generator, research assistant, grant writer
- For administration: document workflow, replies to requests, analytics, timetable
- For business and startups: startup mentor, business plan, market analysis, translator
The platform runs in demonstration mode: agent replies are simulated. Once the university launches its own GPU server, real models will replace the simulation.