On September 3, 2026, a press conference was held at Astana Hub dedicated to the start of the first academic year at Qazaq AI Research University (QAIRU). The first specialized university in Central Asia began operating in an "experimental university" mode. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Kursiv Media.
Restructuring existing universities to meet the challenges of artificial intelligence was deemed ineffective. According to Dinara Shcheglova, Vice Minister of Science and Higher Education of Kazakhstan, the experience of world institutions has shown that restructuring the mindset of traditional faculty takes years.
"There are only a few universities in the world where all processes—from education to administration—are built on AI. Therefore, our task was not to reformat an existing university, but to conduct an experiment from scratch," she emphasized.
QAIRU Rector Sapar Toksanov noted that the university does not plan to expand. The annual intake is fixed: 400 bachelor's and 100 master's students.
"We do not want to go for quantity; we want to go for quality," Toksanov explained.
The educational process is made more intensive to prevent knowledge from becoming outdated. The program is integrated with Google and Samsung and is designed for three years.
In the 1st year, students create an MVP; in the 2nd year, a working AI service; and in the 3rd year, a full-fledged AI product, which becomes the basis for their thesis.
"There are only a few universities in the world where all processes are built on AI. The other day we held negotiations with the rector of Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence in the UAE—he is ready to join our team," Shcheglova added.
QAIRU students and researchers have gained direct access to the country's computing power.
Gizzat Baitursynov, Vice Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development of Kazakhstan, announced that the university has already been allocated 20 GPUs based on the domestic supercomputer Alem Cloud (86th place in the world Top-500 ranking). The quota will grow as load increases. In addition, two months ago, an agreement was signed with NVIDIA and Presight to build a powerful data center with a capacity of 250 megawatts.
The university has 24 faculty members (one teacher per 12 students). Some of them are graduates of Nazarbayev University and foreign universities, while others are undergoing internships at Carnegie Mellon University. The quality of teachers' work is assessed not only by lectures but also by the volume of code they write.
Already in October 2026, scientists from the Shanghai Innovation Institute will come to QAIRU to give lectures. The university is building an exchange and double-degree program.
Answering questions about the risks of "brain drain," QAIRU Rector's Advisor Aidyn Sabitov explained that the EXPO territory unites the university, Astana Hub, and the AI center into a single ecosystem. Graduates will be able to immediately receive funding and launch their own startups within the country.