Kazakhstan has proposed a BRICS+ partnership to connect national artificial intelligence centres and share research facilities, broadening its diplomatic push for access to AI technology.
President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev outlined the proposal in New Delhi on 13 September, months after Kazakhstan joined the US-led Pax Silica initiative and signed the founding agreement of a China-initiated AI organisation.
The BRICS+ partnership could open access to laboratories and research projects and support multilingual AI systems, according to the Kazakh government’s account of his speech. Tokayev said his country was ready to contribute computing infrastructure.
The account named no facilities and gave no budget, capacity allocation or launch date. It also left access rules unspecified.
Tokayev had called for a similar network at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit on 1 September. That proposal would bring together universities, research institutions and technology companies from member countries. His BRICS+ remarks focused on national AI centres, laboratories and multilingual systems, without explaining how the two proposals might fit together.
Kazakhstan’s efforts span initiatives with different purposes. Pax Silica, which it joined on 25 June, focuses on supply chains for the AI economy, including critical minerals, semiconductors, energy and data centres. Astana also signed the separate AI Opportunity Partnership statement.
On 16 July, Kazakhstan was among 29 countries that signed the founding agreement of the Shanghai-based World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization, or WAICO, whose stated aims include international AI cooperation and governance.
Washington has considered curbs on such overlapping ties. Reuters reported on 14 August that the State Department had drafted a letter warning that Pax Silica participation could not be combined with membership of initiatives whose expectations conflicted with its own. The draft was undated; Reuters could not establish when it would be sent or whether it would change.
The BRICS New Delhi declaration, dated 12 September, calls for wider access to AI resources. Its AI paragraph does not name the partnership Tokayev proposed the following day.
China separately proposed a BRICS AI open-source initiative on 13 September, including an open-source zone, cooperation on large language models and training. The announcement did not link it to the Kazakh proposal.
