Astana is more than 10,000 kilometers from Silicon Valley, but some of the biggest names in the technology sector are positive about the Kazakh capital.
On Sunday, former Coinbase technical chief and Andreessen Horowitz partner Balaji Srinivasan said as much live-in startup community has officially opened in Kazakhstanin a new show of confidence for the Central Asian country.
“Kazakhstan is a high-tech country that recently ranked first in the International Physics Olympiads. It is full of confident, smart, young people. And it is now recruiting global talent from all over the world,” Srinivasan said in an X-post on Sunday, announcing the launch.
In August, he reopened Network School, his community for founders, crypto enthusiasts and digital nomads, in Astana after the crisis. previous base in Malaysia was closed. Srinivasan has described the school as “Silicon Valley outside Silicon Valley” and said he wants to build it in a “techno-optimistic country” that is affordable, meritocratic and attractive to global talent.
Srinivasan is not alone in his enthusiasm for Kazakhstan.
During a visit to Astana last week, Binance founder Changpeng Zhao said he was “extremely impressed” by the scale of technology, education and infrastructure projects in Kazakhstan.
The crypto exchange signed three agreements with the government of Kazakhstan, including exploring a Kazakhstan-based stablecoin and potentially building some of Binance’s regional operations and infrastructure in the country.
By 2024, Telegram founder Pavel Durov said he visited the country and called it the “economic powerhouse of Central Asia.”
“Kazakhstan’s beauty can only be matched by its ambitions,” he wrote on his personal Telegram channel. “The country attracts international companies and tech startups with business-friendly policies and favorable taxes.”
Telegram has deepened its presence in the country, opening its first regional office in Kazakhstan and launching an AI lab in Astana to tap into the country’s supercomputing infrastructure.
Venture capitalist Tim Draper and former Google China president Kai-Fu Lee have also touted the country’s potential as a hub for entrepreneurship and AI.
Safe haven
It’s fair to say that some of Kazakhstan’s biggest boosters have turned to the country after having problems with regulators elsewhere.
Telegram’s Russian-born founder Durov has been working on it for years clash with Moscow over government access to the app and is now facing terrorism-related charges in Russia. He is also still under formal investigation in France following his arrest in 2024 for alleged criminal activity on Telegram.
Binance’s Zhao pleaded guilty in the US in 2023 to violating anti-money laundering laws and resigned as CEO as Binance paid more than $4 billion to settle federal charges.
Srinivasan also moved the Network School to Kazakhstan after running it in Malaysia for two years and facing regulatory challenges earlier this summer.
Yet Kazakhstan is actively pursuing this renewed attention from technology leaders.
Over the past two years, the country has introduced digital nomad and “neo nomad” visas, targeting foreign technology workers and remote professionals.
In May, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev ordered further immigration reforms attract highly qualified workersentrepreneurs and foreign investors. Astana Hub, a futuristic-looking techno park where the Network School is located, also offers tax breaks to qualifying tech companies.
“Artificial intelligence develops where there are talented people, bold ideas and an environment in which they can be realized,” Deputy Prime Minister Zhaslan Madiyev said in a July press release. “We are building exactly such an ecosystem in Kazakhstan.”
