How the State Is Building a Modernisation Model

The Expert Radar (read here) captures the tensions identified by the expert community. The Institutional Radar asks a different question: which problems has the state already recognised, and what does that recognition become in practice?

An issue may receive a presidential policy frame, become an instruction to the Government, and acquire a programme, funding, rules, and responsible institutions. The decision then reaches the economy and everyday life through prices, services, business conditions, security, and trust.

The TALAP Institutional Radar traces this path. It contains 45 signal nodes distributed across six sectors, four rings, and ten clusters. Links between the nodes form six implementation cascades.

The radar's main finding: the government agenda seeks to build a managed modernisation model through macrofinancial stability, digitalisation, skills, energy, external connectivity, and control over resources. The resilience of this model depends on implementation quality and the capacity to manage the cost of reform.

Official publications are often read as separate news items: a meeting was held, an instruction was issued, a strategy was adopted, a project was launched, rules were changed, or a report was presented. The Institutional Radar brings these messages together in a single system.

It shows four stages through which the government agenda progresses.

Movement between these stages reveals future decision points. A strong strategy may encounter insufficient funding, weak project preparation, skills shortages, or public sensitivity.

The Institutional Radar identifies such transitions before they develop into separate crises.

The radar draws on publications by Aqorda, UKIMET, the National Bank of Kazakhstan, and Atameken Business.

• Aqorda highlights the issues that receive presidential framing, giving them strategic direction and political weight. Detailed mechanisms emerge later through the Government, regulators, and individual programmes.
• In the second quarter of 2026, particular attention was given to Digital Qazaqstan, artificial intelligence, human capital, science and education, the Middle Corridor, external partnerships, investment, and financial resilience.

• UKIMET shows how strategic frameworks become Government decisions: meetings, instructions, sectoral measures, national projects, allocation of responsibility, and cross-agency coordination.
• Digitalisation, AI, education, skills policy, infrastructure, and sectoral modernisation are especially prominent.
• The Government links technological change to the labour market. Its analysis covered more than 73,000 enterprises and identified an ageing workforce, regional imbalances, and a weak connection between some education programmes and the economy's actual needs.

• The National Bank provides a macrofinancial perspective in which inflation is one of the central issues. Monetary policy, foreign-exchange operations, and liquidity management establish the operating framework for other government decisions.
• At the same time, the financial system is one of the main testing grounds for digitalisation. Biometrics, the digital tenge, financial information exchange, tokenisation, and fraud prevention already form an interconnected infrastructure.

• Atameken Business shows how decisions pass through the business, parliamentary, audit, and public agendas.
• It makes the effects of tariffs, budget and audit issues, business costs, industrial safety, digital fraud, project quality, transparency in the use of public resources, and public trust particularly visible.
• In the energy sector, the source reports plans to build eight new power plants, modernise eleven existing facilities, and commission 7.8 GW of new and upgraded capacity. In the financial sphere, it presents a more demanding assessment of project readiness, accountability, and control over public funds.

In the Expert Radar, distance from the centre indicates the current salience of a tension. The Institutional Radar uses a different logic: its rings show the stage through which an issue is moving within the government agenda.

The middle ring is the most densely populated. This means that a substantial part of the official agenda has already acquired implementation instruments: funding, rules, digital platforms, regulatory decisions, or infrastructure projects.

The outer ring is also relatively dense. It shows that many reforms are approaching the stage at which citizens, businesses, regions, and oversight institutions begin to assess them.

The Key Differences Between the Rings

• The centre does not mean that an issue has already been implemented. It means that the issue has acquired the highest institutional status.
• The middle ring is not peripheral. On the contrary, it shows the system's practical readiness: the availability of funding, rules, and instruments.
• The outer ring shows the point at which reform meets reality.

The radar centre contains eight strategic nodes.

1. Inflation as the central constraint. Bringing inflation down frames monetary, exchange-rate, and fiscal policy. Other government objectives must be pursued within this constraint.
2. Digital Qazaqstan. Digitalisation becomes an overarching national strategy spanning public administration, education, finance, logistics, and economic sectors.
3. Personal data protection. Data are becoming an important resource for the state and the economy. At the same time, citizen consent, algorithmic transparency, and security are becoming increasingly important.
4. Human capital. Education, science, knowledge, and skills are treated as the foundation of future development.
5. AI-Sana and AI-Enabled University. AI becomes part of the model for skills development, research, and collaboration between universities and the economy.
6. The Middle Corridor. Transit acquires the status of a geoeconomic strategy and a pillar of Kazakhstan's external connectivity.
7. The Gulf investment nexus. Foreign policy serves as a channel for investment, technology, infrastructure, and productive projects.
8. Accountability for the National Fund. Control over public resources and measurable results become a distinct strategic issue.

These eight themes show how the state describes a new development model: stability, digitalisation, human capital, external connectivity, investment, and control over resources.

The analysis identified six thematic sectors, comprising 45 signal nodes in total.

Digitalisation, macrofinancial stability, and skills account for 28 of the nodes. These three sectors form the main core of the official government agenda.

The small number of nodes in the implementation-quality sector does not mean that it is insignificant. Its three nodes — accountability for the National Fund, project readiness, and oversight of the quasi-public sector — test the resilience of the entire system. Their condition affects energy, digitalisation, education, logistics, and investment projects.

The 45 nodes can also be grouped into ten more intuitive blocks, or clusters.

The ten clusters form three layers. The first defines the strategy: macroeconomic stability, digitalisation, skills, and external connectivity. The second brings together the necessary resources: public funds, energy, digital finance, and investment partnerships. The third shows implementation quality and the public outcome.

This structure shows the radar's underlying logic: strategy rests on resources and instruments, while its resilience is tested through implementation and public perceptions of the results.

Clusters show the main blocks of the government agenda. Cascades show how decisions can move from one block to another.

Digital Qazaqstan and AI → deployment in education, finance, public services, and logistics → growing importance of data, biometrics, and digital payments → stronger cybersecurity and regulation → risks of fraud, excessive control, and digital inequality → trust or anxiety.

• This is the densest modernisation cascade in the Institutional Radar.
• Digitalisation spans public administration, the financial system, education, logistics, customs procedures, security, budget traceability, and interaction between the state and citizens.
• The infrastructure already includes the digital tenge, biometrics, payment services, tokenisation, and digital logistics tools.
• Expanding digital capabilities raises the requirements for data protection, algorithmic transparency, and institutional accountability. Convenient services and trust in their use become two sides of the same strategy.

Rising demand and ageing assets → construction and modernisation of generation capacity → long-term financing → tariff adjustment → higher costs → inflation and public sensitivity.

• Industry, the digital economy, data centres, cities, and transport require a reliable energy system.
• The government response includes a national project for coal-fired generation for 2026–2030, new power plants, and modernisation of existing capacity. Such investment also requires financing and a mechanism for recovering its cost.
• Tariff reform is becoming a point of intersection between energy, macroeconomics, and social policy. The pace of tariff increases, service quality, and targeted support will shape public perceptions of modernisation.
• The central question is how to finance energy modernisation while establishing a clear link between tariffs, investment, and service quality.

Inflation → tight monetary policy → foreign-exchange and liquidity operations → lower inflation and exchange-rate risks → effects on lending and investment → business activity and real incomes.

• Price and currency stability provide a foundation for long-term decisions. At the same time, a high base rate and constrained liquidity increase the cost of financing.
• The institutional agenda employs several instruments: the base rate, foreign-exchange sales from the National Fund, sterilisation of tenge liquidity, and foreign-exchange sales by quasi-public companies.
• The main trade-off lies in policy calibration. Rapid easing may revive inflationary pressure, while prolonged tightness may constrain lending, investment, and the recovery of individual sectors.

Technological transformation → an ageing workforce and regional imbalances → revision of education programmes → new technology-related fields → work-based learning → delayed productivity gains.

• The labour market is changing faster than the education system.
• Government materials identify an ageing workforce, regional disparities, skills shortages, an oversupply of some programmes, and a weak connection between theory and practice.
• The institutional response includes closing more than 700 programmes, launching 21 new fields, developing AI and Data, bioengineering, Smart Agriculture, and EdTech, and expanding work-based learning.
• The main constraint is time. The economy needs specialists now, while graduates of the revised programmes will emerge later. Transitional instruments are therefore important: retraining existing workers, company-based learning, and regional partnerships between universities and employers.

Transit between China and Europe → the Middle Corridor → digital logistics → external partnerships → investment in transport and infrastructure → new export and production niches.

• In the official agenda, the Middle Corridor is becoming part of a broader geoeconomic architecture.
• It is linked to China and Europe, the Trans-Caspian route, Türkiye and the Organization of Turkic States, ports and airports, Smart Cargo and e-Permit, new directions in Africa, investment, and industrial localisation.
• Aqorda materials state that around 85% of overland freight traffic between China and Europe passes through Kazakhstan, and that freight volumes along the Middle Corridor have increased more than fivefold in recent years.
• Geography creates an opportunity. A deeper economic impact comes through logistics services, processing, export-oriented production, industrial projects, and the participation of Kazakhstan's companies in supply chains.

The National Fund, the UAPF, and public investment → project financing → the quasi-public sector → allocation of accountability → project readiness → audit and oversight → results and trust.

• This cascade runs through the entire Institutional Radar.
• Public resources finance infrastructure, sectoral development, social obligations, and macrofinancial stability. Their scale makes it possible to launch major projects.
• The central question is how to convert financing into results.
• Materials from the Supreme Audit Chamber reflected in the public agenda cover more than 3,000 public investment projects worth 3.4 trillion tenge and bond loans to the quasi-public sector totalling 3.8 trillion tenge. The identified problems include weak project readiness, project substitution during implementation, insufficient transparency, and the absence of a single centre accountable for achieving the National Fund's objectives.
• This cascade tests all the others: whether documentation for energy facilities is ready, the results of digital projects are defined, skills reforms are adequately resourced, Middle Corridor projects are prepared, and the impact of investment can be traced.

The Institutional Radar identifies six areas in which government policy addresses one problem while creating new management requirements.

These trade-offs form the radar's management formula: modernisation becomes sustainable when a strategic mandate is backed by a sound project, resources, an accountable implementing body, measurable results, and public trust.

The Institutional Radar shows a state attempting to address several major tasks at once: reducing inflation, modernising energy, introducing AI, restructuring education, expanding external connectivity, attracting investment, and controlling public resources.

These areas have already acquired political weight, programmes, and instruments. The government agenda for Q2 therefore appears to be an attempt to build a new development model.

Implementation is the main constraint.

Macroeconomic stability requires precise calibration. Energy requires funding and tariffs. Digitalisation requires protection and trust. Skills reform requires time. The Middle Corridor requires projects and domestic economic linkages. Public funds require transparency and accountability.

The Institutional Radar reveals the entire path: strategic mandate → programme → instrument → implementation → public impact → trust.

Progress along this path will determine whether the modernisation agenda becomes sustainable development.

Other materials in the series

• How the TALAP Signal Radar Works — read
• Kazakhstan Is Entering a More Complex Growth Model — read
• Kazakhstan at an Investment Turning Point — read
• Kazakhstan in a Phase of Transitional Resilience — read