21.11.2025 | https://yestate.kz/epoha-gigavattov-kak-data-czentry-kazahstana-vstupayut-v-mirovuyu-gonku/

The Gigawatt Era: How Kazakhstan’s Data Centers Are Entering the Global Race

The global data center (DC) market is on the brink of a monumental transformation, with artificial intelligence (AI) emerging as the main catalyst and driver of growth. This shift now requires investments measured not in megawatts, but in gigawatts (GW).

The global data center (DC) market is on the brink of a monumental transformation, with artificial intelligence (AI) emerging as the main catalyst and driver of growth. This shift now requires investments measured not in megawatts, but in gigawatts (GW).

The data center market in Kazakhstan stands at a critical crossroads, where national infrastructure development intersects with the global AI revolution, which demands unprecedented computing power. This worldwide trend — reshaping the entire digital economy — is best illustrated by a landmark partnership: Nvidia is investing up to $100 billion in OpenAI to enable the construction of data centers fully optimized for AI processors. According to OpenAI’s plans, these facilities will require as much as 10 gigawatts (GW) of power. As Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang stated, this is equivalent to 4–5 million GPUs and is approximately twice the total volume the company is expected to ship during the current year. These are not just investments — they represent a project of monumental scale, highlighting that demand for AI infrastructure is a defining factor shaping the future of the two leading companies in AI and chipmaking. Huang also noted that building just one gigawatt of data center capacity costs between $50–60 billion, around $35 billion of which is attributed specifically to Nvidia chips and systems.

In Kazakhstan, this imperative has already become a key driving force. Vadim Bludov, Director of the Cloud Services and Data Center Department at QazCloud, emphasizes that AI will be the primary growth driver over the next 5–10 years, dictating the need for specialized HPC (High-Performance Computing) centers equipped with GPU servers.

“At present, Kazakhstan’s data center market significantly lags behind developed countries in terms of rack density and per-capita capacity, indicating enormous untapped potential for the construction of new facilities.”

Sustained double-digit market growth is expected, reinforced not only by AI demand but also by the increasing need for corporate clients, including the public and quasi-public sectors, to migrate to commercial data centers in order to use cloud services such as IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS.

The strategic development of Kazakhstan’s data center network is focused on geo-redundancy and disaster resilience. The choice of Kosshy (a suburb of Astana) is deliberate: it enables the creation of a geographically distributed active резерв / failover site, which is critical to eliminating the risk of data loss in the event of a major outage at one of the centers. This approach is gaining regulatory recognition: starting in 2025, Tier-2 banks (BVU) in Astana will be required to maintain a backup data center in another locality, and Kosshy is the closest location with a developed infrastructure suitable for building such a metro cluster. Proximity to the capital also guarantees minimal latency (low ping), which is essential for key clients. During construction, typical challenges were addressed, including soil reinforcement to prevent flooding and the deployment of utilities with N+1 redundancy.

To ensure both reliability and environmental sustainability, QazCloud is implementing innovative technical solutions. The N+1 configuration employs Dynamic UPS (D-UPS) — a solution unique to the Kazakhstan market. These systems are significantly more energy-efficient than traditional battery-based UPS systems and contribute to green energy initiatives by eliminating the need to dispose of large volumes of batteries. Physical security includes armed guards, 24/7 video surveillance, and multi-layer access control using biometric identification. To protect high-value equipment, gas-based fire suppression systems and an early smoke detection system are used, enabling fire prevention without damaging equipment with water or chemical residues. Continuous temperature monitoring and control in the server halls aim to optimize the PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) — a key metric of energy efficiency.