Kazakhstan boasts to have an AI diplomacy and a digital-government track record. What it is missing is a platform that turns both into water reaching the people who need it.
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During President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s visit to Shanghai this July, he addressed the World Artificial Intelligence Conference, describing AI as an industry now building out a “comprehensive infrastructure” that will shape the future of the global economy, trade and international connectivity. He cited the United Nations statistics showing that global investment in AI infrastructure is growing by an average of 47% a year, with the global AI market on track to approach $5 trillion by 2033. His main argument was about fairness: AI should become a driver of more equitable and inclusive development, and every country needs a chance to build its own human capital, digital infrastructure and institutions around it, not just the few states currently leading the field.
Kazakhstan did not just make the argument in Shanghai — it proposed and acted on it, co-founding the new World AI Cooperation Organization alongside 28 other states within months of the idea being proposed, with Tokayev offering the capital of Kazakhstan as host of its first meeting. The obvious next step is what Kazakhstan actually builds with that vision once the delegation flies home. A very powerful candidate sitting in the country’s own fields is water.
A crisis moving faster than the diplomacy meant to fix it
Kazakhstan is among the world’s 30 most water-stressed countries and has lost over 21% of its per capita water availability since the start of the 2000s. More than 45% of its water actually originates outside its borders. The Caspian Sea is now at its lowest level in over 400 years and shrinks at a fast accelerating rate. None of this is moving on a diplomatic timetable. Yet the country’s main global response is a proposed International Water Organization (IWO) championed by Tokayev under UN auspices since 2025, but discussions are still focused on how the organization should eventually take shape. A parallel regional process, Tajikistan’s Dushanbe Water Framework, remains an important initiative, yet it is not expected to be adopted until the 2028 UN Water Conference.
Both processes matter, and neither is wrong to exist — a UN-backed framework can build an institution that carries international legitimacy, but that takes time and lasting credibility. The problem is that water insecurity is moving much faster than the diplomacy designed to address it. With every year that passes, the gap between the crisis and the response grows a little wider. Kazakhstan has already showcased that it can act quickly when it sees a strategic opportunity. Its recent leadership on AI cooperation in Shanghai showed its capabilities of bringing countries together and building new institutions. Water diplomacy now requires the same sense of urgency.
The idea: an AI platform that matches specific needs to specific help
The proposal currently taking shape is called AqylSu — meaning “smart water” in Kazakh. The idea was inspired by Kazakhstan’s own eGov.kz system, the main aim of which is to bring the same efficiency to international water cooperation. Instead of relying on long, case-by-case negotiations, AqylSu would provide a single digital platform where countries could submit their requests, find suitable partners, and track progress. While Kazakhstan has gained international recognition worldwide for its digital governance, no similar system currently exists for cooperation on water between countries.
The idea is simple. A country that faces a specific water-related problem, such as a shortage of water filtration equipment, would submit a structured request through the platform. An AI-powered matching system would verify the country’s request using independent data, including images and water-stressed indicators, before comparing it with registered countries and technical organizations that have already declared available equipment or funding. This would allow countries with specific needs to be matched with those who are available to provide practical support for those in need.
Where financing is required, countries with the resources could contribute voluntarily. Further complex requests could be reviewed by a committee working with UN-Water and the International Water Organization, while every request and outcome would be recorded on a public dashboard to further ensure transparency and accountability.
Fast precedents: Saudi Arabia’s Global Water Organization and Tajikistan’s Dushanbe Process
Kazakhstan does not need to guess whether a fast, nationally driven water initiative would work — Saudi Arabia has already begun running the experiment. In September 2023, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced the creation of the Global Water Organization (GWO). By May 2025, eight founding states — Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Spain, Greece, Senegal, Pakistan and Mauritania — had signed its charter in Riyadh, with Saudi Arabia funding the organization’s operations for five years and hosting its headquarters. At Saudi Water Week in Jeddah in mid-2026, the GWO had approved its bylaws, governance model, and a four-year strategy, and is preparing for its first General Assembly. Tajikistan’s own Dushanbe Water Process has moved on a similar diplomatic timeline: in May 2026, at its fourth conference, Emomali Rahmon proposed a brand-new Dushanbe Water Framework, expected to be carried forward by the UN Water Conference in 2028, which Tajikistan will host. Both paths show that nationally driven water diplomacy can move fast — but both remain platforms for coordination and policy dialogue, not systems that match one country’s specific need to another’s specific offer. That is precisely the operational layer AqylSu is designed to add.
Two working models for how the mechanism would actually run
AqylSu draws its inspiration from a system the United Nations uses. The UN Volunteers program, which supports agencies such as UNICEF, maintains a global roster of registered professionals and matches them with specific requests from country offices based on their skills. AqylSu follows a similar approach. Instead of matching people to jobs, it would match verified water-related requests with countries or technical experts that have already declared available expertise, equipment, and funding. This would make finding support faster and more targeted, instead of relying on traditional diplomatic outreach.
The financial model also has a practical precedent. Since 1967, the UN Women’s Guild in Vienna has raised funds through its annual International Festivals Bazaar to support small humanitarian projects. A review committee rates applications each year and recommends selected projects for funding, to ensure resources are shared fairly and transparently. AqylSu could adopt a similar approach for water requests that are too small or complex to attract a single sponsoring organization or country, by using a pooled fund overseen by a committee to provide support where it is most needed.
What it would look like in practice
Imagine a country whose water system can no longer hold or provide safe drinking water due to its lack of filtration equipment. Instead of beginning lengthy negotiations, the country submits a request through AqylSu, clearly outlining what is needed and when. The platform verifies the request using independent water data stored in its database, before matching it with a country that has available filtration capacity.
If the country cannot cover the full cost, AqylSu will first look for a state that is willing to help finance the request. If there is no direct sponsor available, the request can be reviewed through a pooled funding mechanism based on the UN Women’s Guild’s model. At every stage, from receipt to approval, this information would be posted on a public dashboard so that international water aid would be both swift and transparent.
Bringing the Shanghai vision home
Tokayev’s message in Shanghai was that AI should not remain the property of a handful of advanced economies — that every country deserves the infrastructure and institutions to use it well. Kazakhstan is now in the unusual position of having said that on the world stage and having, close at hand, the exact problem where it could prove it: a water crisis it cannot out-wait, a digital-government platform that already works domestically, and two very different but equally instructive templates — one Gulf, one Viennese — for how the money and the matching could actually flow. AqylSu is not a rival to the UN’s own water diplomacy; it is the operational arm that diplomacy has never had. Kazakhstan already knows it can build fast, charter-based institutions when it chooses to. The question now is whether it does the same for the resource its own president has called an emerging crisis — before the next round of consultations concludes.
The authors are Jansultan Syrymbet and Jamila Syrymbet, students of the CIS Astana and Corvinus University respectively.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of The Astana Times.
