Omar Sultan Al Olama on AI ministries, regulation, and and Kazakhstan’s digital transformation

- Your Excellency, you have experience establishing a Ministry of AI back in 2017, and now Kazakhstan has created a similar institution. What key mistakes did you see the ministry make at the start that Kazakhstan could avoid based on your experience? Since we are talking about 2017 and 2025, what has changed in approaches to AI development?

- Thank you very much for having me. It is a pleasure to participate in this important gathering of some of the greatest minds in artificial intelligence. When it comes to establishing a ministry from scratch and setting forth a vision, it is important to focus on areas that will continue to provide value over the long term.

I will give you an example. In the past, when it came to artificial intelligence, the focus was on self-driving cars and on computer vision systems. No one was talking about large language models. But in the UAE, we did not focus on the technology specifically, we focused on developing human capital. And the human capital that we developed in the UAE has led to the outcomes that we are seeing today.

And from what I heard from His Excellency the President and their Excellencies the ministers, the focus is really on that in Kazakhstan, which to me proves that Kazakhstan is extremely forward-looking, will hopefully have great results come out of this, and will be able to build a talent pool that is global in nature and able to serve the globe and the requirements of different companies and countries.

- How do you think we can measure the ‘success’ of a Ministry of AI? What specific metrics or results should such a ministry achieve within 1-2, and 5 years to demonstrate that it is working effectively?

- There are three main domains that I would urge Kazakhstan to focus on. The first is savings, which is excellent as a metric. However, it is not just about how much money you save, it is about quality of life improvement. So citizen satisfaction with the services being deployed, along with the economic return from the savings created, is the first metric for me.

The second, which is a clear metric that should be measured, is how many people are technically able to utilize artificial intelligence in Kazakhstan. Every single person who can use AI effectively is more productive than someone who does not use AI in their day-to-day life. So I think percentage utilization, especially in the first period, is very important.

And the third is how many companies become AI-native companies that start within Kazakhstan, and how their growth is measured over time. I am sure there are many startups in Kazakhstan, and you can look at two measures. One is how many of them pivot towards artificial intelligence. The second is how many companies start with AI as their core principle. One thing we did in the UAE that was very beneficial was launching trade licenses specifically focused on AI companies.

So if you establish a company and indicate that it is an AI company, your trade license is different from a normal digital business, for example. And we measure the number of companies that are starting with that core principle in how they conduct business.

- The UAE has strengthened its position by integrating the Arabic language into AI systems, developing its own model, and actively advancing digital cultural and linguistic projects. For Kazakhstan, a similar challenge exists regarding the Kazakh language. What were the major difficulties with integrating the Arabic language, and what steps could be useful for Kazakhstan and Kazakh language?

- I am not sure if the challenge will be relevant for Kazakhstan, but in the UAE and in the Middle East region there are so many different dialects of the Arabic language. One of the challenges in implementing AI for Arabic was how the AI could understand all the dialects and the nuances associated with them. I think this is something that, if relevant to Kazakhstan, can be addressed by providing more training to large language models, which will lead to better outcomes.

The second thing, and I think I was actually very impressed by His Excellency the President, is the number of languages that are spoken. His Excellency the President, even during the Council meeting, spoke in multiple languages, proficiently in English, Kazakh, and other languages as well. One of the challenges we have in the UAE is that we do not need just a model that focuses on Arabic. Arabic is the core language, but with a very diverse and multilingual population, we also need to speak English as effectively as Arabic.

So I think this is one of the things that I would urge Kazakhstan to partner and to work with other countries to ensure that you do not start from zero every single time, that you start where everyone else leaves off, and you build a very robust ecosystem when it comes to linguistics.

- The world is moving rapidly toward AI regulation: the EU is launching the AI Act, the US is debating new transparency standards, and the UN has established an advisory body on AI. In your view, is it possible to develop unified global rules, or will regulation remain fragmented - divided into blocs and regions?

- That is a fantastic question, and I think it has two parts. The first part is that for certain things, you cannot actually regulate them until it's global. Deep fakes, for example, are very difficult to regulate unless there is global regulation on them.

On other parts, it is about local regulations. What I think needs to happen is that Kazakhstan should have a very agile legislative process to deploy regulations whenever necessary on issues that are important domestically, where there is domestic control.

And where there is not, for example, deep fakes can be produced anywhere on earth and spread in your country. So it is very difficult for you to regulate it just in Kazakhstan, you need to work on a global coalition on that front. On issues like that specifically, I think the right answer would be to join the global coalitions and international bodies, to ensure that you join your voice with everyone else, to ensure that there is action.

And then there needs to be a balance between local and international efforts when it comes to regulation.

Earlier, Kazinform News Agency reported that President Tokayev opened 1st meeting of AI Development Council.