Kazakhstan and China just signed over 70 commercial agreements worth more than $15 billion on the sidelines of the World AI Conference in Shanghai. The deals, inked on July 16 with both President Xi Jinping and Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev present, cover everything from AI infrastructure and EV battery plants to a new Caspian Sea port terminal.
What’s in the deal package
The headline grabber is CATL’s commitment to build Central Asia’s first large-scale battery manufacturing facility in Kazakhstan. For a country targeting carbon neutrality by 2060, that’s a cornerstone investment.
Huawei signed a strategic partnership to enhance Kazakhstan’s AI and digital capabilities. Kazakhtelecom and Chinese firms are collaborating on a “data center valley” project.
The deals also include a 600 MW pumped-storage hydropower facility. Cheap, abundant energy is the single biggest cost input for proof-of-work mining and large-scale data center operations. A pumped-storage facility provides exactly the kind of grid-balancing capacity that makes energy-intensive digital operations viable.
