Advancing Learning, Entrepreneurship, and Markets for Artificial Intelligence (WB-P513072)

Regions
  • Europe and Central Asia
Geographic location where the impacts of the investment may be experienced.
Countries
  • Kazakhstan
Geographic location where the impacts of the investment may be experienced.
Financial Institutions
  • World Bank (WB)
International, regional and national development finance institutions. Many of these banks have a public interest mission, such as poverty reduction.
Project Status
Proposed
Stage of the project cycle. Stages vary by development bank and can include: pending, approval, implementation, and closed or completed.
Bank Risk Rating
B
Environmental and social categorization assessed by the development bank as a measure of the planned project’s environmental and social impacts. A higher risk rating may require more due diligence to limit or avoid harm to people and the environment. For example, "A" or "B" are risk categories where "A" represents the highest amount of risk. Results will include projects that specifically recorded a rating, all other projects are marked ‘U’ for "Undisclosed."
Voting Date
Sep 30, 2026
Date when project documentation and funding is reviewed by the Board for consideration and approval. Some development banks will state a "board date" or "decision date." When funding approval is obtained, the legal documents are accepted and signed, the implementation phase begins.
Borrower
Government of Kazakhstan - Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development
A public entity (government or state-owned) provided with funds or financial support to manage and/or implement a project.
Sectors
  • Industry and Trade
The service or industry focus of the investment. A project can have several sectors.
Investment Type(s)
Loan
The categories of the bank investment: loan, grant, guarantee, technical assistance, advisory services, equity and fund.
Investment Amount (USD)
$ 75.00 million
Value listed on project documents at time of disclosure. If necessary, this amount is converted to USD ($) on the date of disclosure. Please review updated project documents for more information.
Project Cost (USD)
$ 145.13 million
Value listed on project documents at time of disclosure. If necessary, this amount is converted to USD ($) on the date of disclosure. Please review updated project documents for more information.
Bank Documents
Primary Source

Original disclosure @ WB website

Updated in EWS Sep 16, 2026

Disclosed by Bank Oct 3, 2025

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Can you contribute information about this project?
Contact the EWS Team

Project Description
If provided by the financial institution, the Early Warning System Team writes a short summary describing the purported development objective of the project and project components. Review the complete project documentation for a detailed description.

According to the Bank’s website, the objective of this project is to enable the creation, commercialization and scale-up of technology startups for productivity-driven growth in Kazakhstan.

The project aims to strengthen Kazakhstan's position in AI and Industry 4.0 by investing in research, skills, and innovation ecosystems (US$30 million), including the creation of an AI Center, cloud platforms, robotics labs, tailored training programs, and talent attraction measures. It will also support startup development (US$39.85 million) through ideation-to-seed support, acceleration, international exposure, and a venture capital fund to catalyze private investment in ICT, Industry 4.0, and greentech. Finally, the project allocates resources (US$5.2 million) to monitoring, evaluation, and project management, ensuring effective implementation, inter-agency coordination, and providing analytics on innovation ecosystem gaps and best practices to help policymakers make informed startup policy decisions.

Early Warning System Project Analysis
For a project with severe or irreversible impacts to local community and natural resources, the Early Warning System Team may conduct a thorough analysis regarding its potential impacts to human and environmental rights.

The project’s environmental and social (E&S) risks are rated as Moderate at the appraisal stage. The operation will strengthen Kazakhstan’s innovation and startup ecosystem by advancing research capacity, developing specialized skills, and mobilizing private investment for next-generation technologies and AI solutions, with activities implemented within existing facilities and no new construction, building renovation, or land acquisition envisaged.

Physical interventions are limited to procuring and installing digital, computing, and robotics equipment (e.g., high-performance GPU resources and robotics lab assets), which present predictable, site-confined environmental risks related to resource efficiency, energy use and equipment maintenance; possible generation of small amounts of packaging waste and minor disturbances during delivery and setup; potential e-waste generation at the end of the equipment lifecycle during the operation phase; low-to-moderate OHS risks during equipment handling and installation; and (iv) downstream risks associated with the use of supported technologies, data storage, and processing of digital operations, if not managed sustainably.

Investment Description
Here you can find a list of individual development financial institutions that finance the project.

Total Project Cost: US$ 145.13 million
International Bank for Reconstruction and Development: US$ 75.00 million


Contact Information
This section aims to support the local communities and local CSO to get to know which stakeholders are involved in a project with their roles and responsibilities. If available, there may be a complaint office for the respective bank which operates independently to receive and determine violations in policy and practice. Independent Accountability Mechanisms receive and respond to complaints. Most Independent Accountability Mechanisms offer two functions for addressing complaints: dispute resolution and compliance review.

CONTACT POINT - World Bank

Task Team Leader: Karim Ouled Belayachi
Title: Senior Private Sector Specialist
Email: kbelayachi@worldbank.org

ACCESS TO INFORMATION

To submit an information request for project information, you will have to create an account to access the Access to Information request form. You can learn more about this process at: https://www.worldbank.org/en/access-to-information/request-submission

ACCOUNTABILITY MECHANISM OF THE WORLD BANK

The World Bank Inspection Panel is the independent complaint mechanism and fact-finding body for people who believe they are likely to be, or have been, adversely affected by a World Bank-financed project. If you submit a complaint to the Inspection Panel, they may investigate to assess whether the World Bank is following its own policies and procedures for preventing harm to people or the environment. You can contact the Inspection Panel or submit a complaint by emailing ipanel@worldbank.org. Information on how to file a complaint and a complaint request form are available at: https://www.inspectionpanel.org/how-to-file-complaint

How it works

How it works