AI is reshaping digital infrastructure demands in the Asia-Pacific region

Kazakhstan is not a bystander in this story: the country has been acting for several years as one of the institutional architects of regional dialogue on digital transformation.

The gist in brief

• ESCAP has presented its report "Digital Transformation in Asia and the Pacific — 2026": as AI spreads, digital infrastructure is ceasing to be a system oriented toward information transmission and is turning into a platform for data analysis and real-time decision support.
• The region's average Digital Transformation Index (DTI) stands at 50.28 points, compared with the global average of 49.63, but the gap within the region is enormous — high-income countries' digital development outcomes are almost four times higher than those of low-income countries.
• The report's authors warn that the next stage of the digital divide may be determined not so much by public access to the internet as by countries' capabilities in innovation, computing infrastructure, data processing, and the creation of AI-based solutions.
• The report was presented at the opening of the ESCAP Committee on ICT session, where a three-day discussion is underway on the action plan of the "Asia-Pacific Information Superhighway" initiative for 2027–2030.

From data transmission to decision-making

The conceptual shift the report captures is the transition of digital infrastructure from the category of "pipes for transmitting information" to the category of systems capable of independently analyzing situations and proposing solutions. A practical example from the report is tools such as SatGPT, which allow users to build maps of flood-prone areas with a simple text query, accelerating situational assessment and emergency response. UN Under-Secretary-General and ESCAP Executive Secretary Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana stressed that for networks originally designed with AI capabilities in mind to benefit all economies in the region rather than exacerbate existing inequalities, governments need to act purposefully and in a coordinated manner — both at the national level and through regional cooperation.

Kazakhstan as an architect of the regional process

In 2024, it was Kazakhstan that hosted the Asia-Pacific Ministerial Conference on Digital Inclusion and Transformation, and following the conference, 30 countries agreed on and endorsed the Astana Declaration on Digital Inclusion and Transformation. Kazakhstan's Digital Transformation Center acts as one of the partners of the relevant ESCAP project for 2024–2026, alongside the Ministry of Digital Development, Innovation and Aerospace Industry of the Republic of Kazakhstan. In other words, the country participates not only as a data point in the regional index statistics but also as one of the few states in the region whose name is enshrined in the title of the process's final policy document.

The digital divide in numbers

The scale of the problem this institutional work is designed to address looks serious: according to ESCAP, around 43% of Central Asia's population remains unconnected to the internet — meaning the discussion of transitioning to "AI-enabled infrastructure" is taking place against the backdrop of a basic digital divide that is far from being overcome in the region. The Digital Transformation Index assesses countries across five dimensions — networks, government, business, people, and ecosystem — and three stages of development: basic, adoption, and acceleration. It is directly into the network pillar of the index that the completed laying of the Trans-Caspian fiber-optic line between Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan fits — a concrete example of how the country is expanding its own network infrastructure precisely at a time when the regional report identifies it as a key condition for AI readiness. For Central Asia as a whole, where Kazakhstan sits alongside Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan in the index, the gap in outcomes between the region's countries remains noticeable.

Author's conclusion

The ESCAP report captures a change in the rules of the game: countries that until recently were competing for internet coverage now face a far more complex challenge — building the computing infrastructure, institutions, and human capacity to work with AI without falling behind their regional neighbors. Kazakhstan's role as host of the ministerial conference and co-author of the Astana Declaration shows that the country is betting not only on its own digital development but also on participating in shaping the rules by which the digital economy of the entire region will be built — which may prove to be no less significant an asset than specific index scores.