Kazakhstan alone sits in both US and Chinese AI initiatives as Gulf-Southeast Asia cooperation scales
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Southeast Asia and the Gulf are building a multibillion-dollar AI partnership that pairs Gulf capital and infrastructure with Southeast Asian demand. Kazakhstan has joined both the US-led Pax Silica and China-led WAICO initiatives, while Turkmenistan remains outside both under its neutrality policy.
Key Facts
- The United States and China produced 80 notable AI models last year, and the United States operates 5,427 data centers, more than 10 times any other country.
- Saudi Arabia is investing $100 billion in AI start-ups and data centers through Project Transcendence.
- The UAE has committed $148 billion to AI infrastructure over the past two years, with the Stargate UAE cluster expected to cost around $30 billion.
- Kazakhstan joined the US-led Pax Silica initiative in June and the China-led WAICO in July, the only country participating in both.
- Turkmenistan has joined neither Pax Silica nor WAICO, consistent with its permanent neutrality stance.
The Gulf-Southeast Asia Partnership
Gulf and Southeast Asia are building a new AI partnership that turns their different strengths into shared advantage rather than chasing self-sufficiency at the frontier. The Gulf has abundant capital, inexpensive energy, and the capacity to build infrastructure at speed and scale, while Southeast Asia has strong demand. Southeast Asia's digital economy is projected to exceed $300 billion in gross merchandise value by 2025, and its data-center market is forecast to more than double to $30.5 billion by 2030 from $13.7 billion. The UAE has committed $148 billion to AI infrastructure over the past two years, and Stargate UAE, a 1-gigawatt computing cluster built by G42 with OpenAI, Oracle, NVIDIA, SoftBank, and Cisco, is expected to cost around $30 billion. In February this year, G42 signed a framework agreement with a Vietnamese consortium worth up to $1 billion to build national AI and cloud infrastructure spanning government, industry, and academia.
Central Asia's Framework Choices
Kazakhstan joined the US-led Pax Silica initiative in June and the China-led World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization (WAICO) in July. Kazakhstan is the only country participating in both initiatives, reflecting Astana's multi-vector diplomacy. Pax Silica focuses on securing and coordinating the physical supply chains that make computation possible and implicitly aims to reduce reliance on China. WAICO prioritizes governance, safety standards, and international coordination, where Beijing can push open-source artificial intelligence as a development model. Other Central Asian states have joined WAICO, but Turkmenistan has joined neither initiative, consistent with its permanent neutrality stance.
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Kazakhstan alone sits in both US and Chinese AI initiatives as Gulf-Southeast Asia cooperation scales
