"Uzbekistan's Strategy for Artificial Intelligence to 2030: Building a Domestic AI Business Ecosystem"

This article examines the Strategy for the Development of Artificial Intelligence Technologies until 2030, approved by Presidential Resolution No. PP-358 of October 14, 2024, and asks whether the policy framework Uzbekistan has built since 2021 is capable of producing a domestic AI business ecosystem rather than a set of state technology projects. The Strategy sets measurable targets: raising the volume of AI-based software products and services from USD 10 million to USD 1.5 billion by 2030, increasing the number of IT Park residents specializing in AI from 10 to 50, implementing 185 AI projects across sectors, training 1,000 qualified AI specialists, opening 10 AI research laboratories, and placing Uzbekistan among the top 50 countries in the Government AI Readiness Index. Progress on the last indicator has been fast: Uzbekistan rose from 87th place in 2023 to 70th in 2024 and 62nd of 195 countries in the 2025 edition of the index published by Oxford Insights. The surrounding ecosystem has also grown. According to the presidential press service, the country's IT service exports rose from USD 170 million in 2020 to USD 1 billion, IT Park counted more than 2,800 resident companies in July 2025, and residents' service exports reached USD 392.5 million in the first half of 2026, about 30 percent more than a year earlier. In January 2026 the President signed Law No. ZRU-1115, the country's first AI-specific amendments to its information and administrative legislation, and in November 2025 Uzbekistan and the United Arab Emirates launched the “Five Million AI Leaders” project, aimed at training 4.75 million school students, 150,000 teachers, and 100,000 civil servants in AI by 2030. The article argues that the Strategy's central weakness is not ambition but structure: its priority sectors are largely state-led, its talent targets separate mass literacy from specialist depth, its revenue goal lacks published progress data, and its compute infrastructure is still under construction. Converting the Strategy into a private AI business ecosystem will depend on closing these four gaps.