On the wilderness of Karakalpakstan, a bulldozer shoveled the first soil. According to the plan, a smart computing hub with a total scale of 300 megawatts will be built here to serve the training and data processing needs of large models in Central Asia. Thousands of kilometers away in Tashkent, another dialogue is also planning for the future of this land - Uzbekistan's Minister of Digital Technology, Sherzod Shermatov, meets with China's newly appointed Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Uzbekistan, Yu Jun. The topic extends from the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization to university classrooms and corporate investment.

From joining the group to discussing

In July 2026, the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization was signed and established in Shanghai, with its headquarters located in Shanghai. 29 countries signed agreements to become founding members, including Uzbekistan. Joining is just the starting point, how to truly participate is the key. The focus of this meeting is on the mechanism and organizational level: to ensure that the Ukrainian side actively participates in the activities of the organization, makes good use of the resources and opportunities available to the country, and promotes the implementation of a number of mutually beneficial initiatives. For the Ukrainian side, this means not only adapting to the rules set by others, but also being able to sit at the table and participate in shaping the rules.

Integrating computing power into the classroom

Computing power can be introduced, but talent can only be cultivated by oneself. In recent years, Uzbekistan has risen 25 places to 62nd place in the global ranking of artificial intelligence application readiness. It plans to enter the top 50 by 2030, increase the scale of artificial intelligence products and services to 1.5 billion US dollars, and implement more than 200 new projects. To achieve these goals, the curriculum and textbooks must keep up. Both parties have agreed to establish a cooperative relationship with top universities in China, improve information technology related courses and textbooks in higher education institutions, and enable someone to use the computing power in the computer room better. The prospect of cooperation to ensure data security has also been put on the table, laying a solid bottom line for the increasingly frequent cross-border data flows.

Enterprises seize the Central Asian market

The talks also conveyed a clear investment signal: expanding cooperation between the two countries' enterprises in the field of artificial intelligence, attracting leading Chinese technology companies to conduct business in Uzbekistan, and building Uzbekistan into a regional hub for scientific and technological cooperation. This confidence comes from tangible progress - in addition to the 300 megawatt modular intelligent computing center, Chinese companies have signed contracts to build data center clusters with a total capacity of 600 megawatts in Bukhara and Surkhang River states; Huawei has been operating locally for over 25 years and has been deeply involved in the modernization of 4G and 5G networks; Wufang has built a computing infrastructure worth $24 million and plans to add $70 million to expand its computing cluster.

From a construction site on the wilderness to a conference room in Tashkent, the radius of China Ukraine cooperation is expanding. When the three lines of rules, talent, and enterprises are promoted in parallel, artificial intelligence is expected to become the new engine for the next golden decade of the two countries.Editor/Yang Meiling