On November 14, 2024, Kazakhstan Prime Minister Olzhas Bektenov met with Alexei Likhachev, Director General of Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom, in Astana. According to the Kazakh government’s press service, the meeting covered cooperation in nuclear energy, quantum technologies, digitalization, and the exchange of competencies and human resource development.
Participants discussed modern technologies in those fields and noted the importance of interaction between experts from different countries to advance the sectors further. The meeting took place weeks after Kazakhstan held a national referendum on October 6, 2024, approving the construction of the country’s first nuclear power plant, a project for which Rosatom was a leading contender.
Rosatom manages Russia’s national quantum computing roadmap under a government agreement running through 2030, with work spanning superconducting, ion trap, neutral atom, and photonic platforms. The inclusion of quantum technology on the agenda of a prime ministerial meeting marked one of the earliest high-level government engagements on the topic in Kazakhstan.