In dieser Folge von East-West Connect erkunden wir den kasachischen Technologieboom im Technologiepark Astana und stellen KI-Startups wie Arlan Biotech und Autism Spectrum vor, die Innovationen vorantreiben.
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00:00Artificial Intelligence, Connectivity, Blockchain, Technology is disrupting our lives like never before.
00:17In Kazakhstan, the IT sector is growing fast, exporting services to international markets.
00:24It's helping to grow the country's economy, ambass of Central Asia.
00:29But how easy is it in today's competitive and uncertain world?
00:37Hello and welcome to East-West Connect.
00:39We're highlighting business and economic developments in Kazakhstan and the wider Central Asia region,
00:46connecting them with Europe and beyond.
00:50Technology is big business.
00:52In Central Asia, revenue in the IT services market is expected to top 3.8 billion euros this year.
01:01Kazakhstan's IT sector now has over 18,600 businesses.
01:07The Astana Hub, a technology park in the country's capital, is supporting startups, tech companies, investors and researchers.
01:17Opening in 2018, it's attracted more than 1,500 companies so far and created over 28,000 jobs.
01:26Total business revenue has exceeded 1.9 billion euros, with more than half coming from exports in the past five years.
01:36Artificial intelligence is one of the big areas of business.
01:39Take a look at this.
01:47AI played a big role in the speedy development of COVID vaccines.
01:52And now this startup, supported by the Astana Hub, is hoping to turbocharge drug discovery too.
02:01Deploying generative AI, it's come up with software that produces sequences of nanobodies, small antibody fragments, for pharmaceutical research.
02:14Antibody discovery is considered as a holy grail for drug discovery.
02:18Because antibodies are used everywhere, starting from diagnostics to therapeutics.
02:23But there is a problem. Antibody discovery is quite a long process, very expensive.
02:29So our technology is able to give working antibody sequences within minutes and cut the costs.
02:38Alan is one of 150 startups helped by the Astana Hub in the field of AI.
02:46Other businesses are working in the likes of fintech, blockchain and game development.
02:52A growing ecosystem, fueled by incubation, acceleration and startup support.
03:00We are offering tax incentives.
03:02So even international companies can move their operations to Kazakhstan.
03:07They can also become the members of Astana Hub.
03:11So, for example, out of 1,500 IT companies that are members, 400 have some kind of foreign presence.
03:19Alan Biotech has international ambitions of its own.
03:23With a base in the US too, it's eyeing global markets and hopes to get its product out there within a year.
03:38So how does the Astana Hub and its business ecosystem fit into Kazakhstan's wider economic vision?
03:46I asked the country's innovation minister.
03:49We expect that for 2024 the IT exports of Kazakhstan will exceed 700 million US dollars.
03:57So maybe around 70 to 80 percent of that in the result of Astana Hub companies.
04:05And how about helping businesses to expand globally and making them global? How's that going to happen?
04:10There are a number of programs that will launch in Astana Hub.
04:14First of all, by bringing them from developed markets like Silicon Valley.
04:18There are programs like Google for Startups.
04:20Astana Hub is an exclusive partner of Google for this acceleration program in Central Asia, Azerbaijan and Mongolia.
04:27Plus, there are our homegrown acceleration programs like AI Preneurs,
04:32where the individual comes and forms the groups and then the new startups appear.
04:38So these kind of programs, they teach and educate the entrepreneurs and startups.
04:43And when we talk about those IT exports and going to global markets, where are we talking in the world?
04:47Europe? Everywhere else as well?
04:49Frankly speaking, right now the residents of Astana Hub, they're exporting to almost 90 countries.
04:55And this is the US, Europe, Asia and various fields like software engineering,
05:03AI, game dev and a number of other industries.
05:07And what does that mean for your economy here then?
05:09You know that we are an oil and gas based economy, trying to diversify our economy.
05:13And I think that IT exports and the industry itself, giving its own contribution to diversify the economy.
05:19Kazakhstan, like all countries around the world now, face a lot of challenges.
05:23Geopolitics, supply and chain issues, competition, protection.
05:28How do you approach that and how are you trying to overcome some of those challenges?
05:31We're trying to work with everyone, with East and West.
05:35And we know that the exporting regimes of critical technologies is becoming more and more stringent.
05:43But we're trying to somehow to overcome these issues, to work with both sides.
05:51And abiding to all the requirements in terms of the security protocols and the other requirements,
05:59in order to overcome those challenges.
06:03The Astana Hub recently ran a competition for start-ups with finalists receiving seed funding.
06:09Among them, AdSciQ.
06:11AdSciQ is one of the most successful startups in the world.
06:16Green Cars, which is developing electric vehicle infrastructure.
06:20And Autism Spectrum, an app to help diagnose and support children with autism.
06:26I caught up with the founder of Autism Spectrum to hear about their start-up journey.
06:34First, this was just a research project for me.
06:36And I was very excited to be part of it.
06:38And I was very excited to be part of it.
06:40And I was very excited to be part of it.
06:42First, this was just a research project.
06:44We wanted to clarify and get to know about the information on autism.
06:48Not only in Kazakhstan, but overall in post-Soviet Union countries.
06:52And through this research, we realized that there is a high demand for services in this field of medicine.
06:57That's why we figured out that maybe we should do something and create a service that would help people to get the diagnosis.
07:02We mentioned that you were a finalist in this competition run by the Astana Hub.
07:06What did that bring for your company and how important has that been for you?
07:10Astana Hub helped us a lot in terms of finding the financial help and making this app available soon in all the platforms for the vast audience.
07:20But so far we, through the Astana Hub also, tested our app in terms of free hospitals.
07:25But so far we, through the Astana Hub also, tested our app in terms of free hospitals.
07:26And got the feedback and understood the demands and some specific needs in this field.
07:31Do you have aspirations to get into the European international markets as well?
07:35Yeah, the app will be available in spring.
07:37And our major goal here is to make it available to a vast audience.
07:44That's all we have time for in this edition of East-West Connect.
07:47But you can get more business news on our website, euronews.com.
07:52From all the team here, thanks for watching and bye for now.