Tashkent (TDI): President Shavkat Mirziyoyev was briefed on the progress made in developing Uzbekistan’s artificial intelligence ecosystem and the priority tasks set for the sector’s continued growth, on Friday.
The briefing outlined the country’s rising global standing in AI readiness alongside ambitious targets for computing capacity, sector-wide deployment and workforce training over the coming years.
Uzbekistan has risen 25 positions to rank 62nd in the world AI Readiness Index and officials have announced that the country will strive to enter the top 50 by 2030.
To support that ascent the government will aim to increase the value of AI-powered software products and services to $1.5 billion and deploy over 200 new AI projects in the economy.
President Mirziyoyev noted that AI technologies are developing and evolving rapidly and emphasized the need for ongoing monitoring of AI developments in the world and the region for the timely implementation of new technologies and for new policy initiatives.
President Shavkat #Mirziyoyev was briefed on the progress made and the next priorities for developing the artificial intelligence ecosystem in #Uzbekistan.
The priorities aim to expand computing capacity, implement AI solutions across key sectors, and advance international… pic.twitter.com/h0CCRT1PEo
— Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s Press-service (@president_uz) August 7, 2026
The officials pointed out that the underlying computing infrastructure is critical to meeting these targets. Last month, a supercomputer powered by NVIDIA technology was activated at the Digital Government data center and ranks #321 globally by its computational power.
By the end of one month in operation the cluster had been utilised at 90 percent indicating how much demand is already there for the capacity. Uzbekistan has ordered $24 million of state-of-the-art computing equipment to meet this requirement and officials suggested an extra $70 million to further expand the existing cluster.
The President also got an update on the sources of funding delivery schedules for equipment and joint data-center projects with foreign investors to be implemented in the Karakalpakstan region. Reliable data is required to support AI systems and infrastructure is the foundation for them.
Recognising that AI solutions are strongly reliant on data quality authorities were asked to conduct a data audit of ministries and agencies data to ensure its fullness, reliability and interoperability and to create high-quality sectoral datasets.
Building on this the government has plans to further scale up the number of AI projects in the economy and social sphere to over 100 this year and uses are being implemented in the health sector, energy, transport, customs administration, legal service sector, public security, environmental protection and geology.
The expansion will be based on private initiatives as officials pointed to plans for strengthening ties with the IT Park residents startups and over 20 AI laboratories.
It is estimated that the number of residents of the AI Park will reach 300 and the output of services will amount to 2 trillion soums with exports amounting to $160 million this year. Unfortunately, this scale can only be achieved with skilled manpower.
Over 1.5 million people in Uzbekistan have already received certificates on AI; 900 managers, more than 3,000 civil servants, 1,000 employees from banks, and 200 advisors have already taken special courses.
On this foundation, the government will roll out the “Five Million AI Leaders” project to its full extent in the next two years and create new educational resources suitable for schools, universities and the general public.
The training activities are already in practice regional hackathons and competitions have taken place in Nukus, Samarkand, Termez, Bukhara, Fergana, Andijan, Gulistan and Jizzakh as well as the competition “Best Startup in the Field of Artificial Intelligence”. The President ordered to spread such events to all parts of the country.
The same drive for skilled personnel is true of governance. With the AI advisor program for regional and city administrations, 222 advisors were chosen from 500 applicants.
Authorities were asked to tap into a greater pool of foreign-educated young experts to fill these positions and to measure the performance of advisors based on specific criteria with the help of a new digital monitoring platform.
Uzbekistan’s international profile was highlighted with its membership of the World AI Cooperation Organization (WAICO), which creates opportunities for cooperation with foreign technology partners and research centers, introducing large language models and training specialists advancing local initiatives on the international map.
Finally, President Mirziyoyev gave instructions to gradually increase computing power, expand the practical use of AI, create comprehensive databases, nurture potential human resources and startups and strengthen cooperation with foreign countries.
Tayyaba Afzal is an International Relations Graduate from Lahore College for Women University. Her research interests include Information Warfare, AI Governance and Digital Diplomacy. She can be reached at [email protected]
