BEIJING, July 07, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- "More than two thousand years ago, the ancient Silk Road connected peoples, diverse civilizations, and regional economies across nations. Today, we share an equally ambitious mission - to jointly build a 21st-century Digital Silk Road. What flows along this new route is not just goods, but also knowledge, technology, innovation outcomes, investment, and new development concepts," said Serik Nugerbekov, Head of the International Secretariat of G-Global, at the Digital Central Asia International Cooperation Forum held recently in Beijing.
As a key component of Global Digital Economy Conference 2026, the Digital Central Asia International Cooperation Forum focused on digital and intelligent innovation, market connectivity, and ecosystem co-development, with the aim of building a cooperation platform for government-business matchmaking, project implementation, and technology exchanges among Central Asian countries. During the forum, participants from China and Central Asian countries including Kazakhstan and Tajikistan shared their respective achievements and challenges in digital economic development, and expressed their keen aspirations to jointly build the "Digital Silk Road" and promote sustainable development in Central Asia.
In recent years, the five Central Asian countries have successively released digital economy development strategies, vigorously advancing computing infrastructure, digital government, and smart city construction. A regional digital industry ecosystem is taking shape at an accelerated pace. Digital transformation has been elevated to a national strategic priority for Central Asian countries, laying a solid foundation for regional digital cooperation.
You Jing, Secretary-General of the Global Digital Economy Cities Alliance, said at the forum that Central Asia, as a core node of the Silk Road and a geographical hub of Eurasia, is emerging as one of the fastest-growing regions in the global digital economy. The region's digital economy has entered a window of leapfrog growth. The information and communications market of the five Central Asian countries has long outpaced the global average in growth, and the region is accelerating its transformation from a traditional digital consumption market into a digital industry hub, unleashing enormous space for investment and cooperation.
Digital technology is reshaping traditional development models in industry, trade, logistics, and government administration. In 2025, Kazakhstan established the Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development, built a comprehensive digital asset ecosystem, and plans to transform the country into a fully digitalized nation within three years. China, with its thriving digital economy, has naturally become a partner that Kazakhstan and other Central Asian countries are eager to collaborate with.
A representative from the Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development of the Republic of Kazakhstan said at the forum that China is one of the world's leading countries in the digital economy and artificial intelligence. "Close and mutually beneficial cooperation will help Central Asia jointly build a modern digital space, drive economic growth through digital technologies, enhance corporate competitiveness, and improve people's livelihoods."
Nugerbekov noted that for Kazakhstan, cooperation with China in the digital economy is not merely one direction of international engagement, but rather a joint effort to build an entirely new development model for the Eurasian continent.
A representative from the State Committee on Investments and State Property Management of the Republic of Tajikistan said at the forum that China is a global leader in digital infrastructure, smart cities, cross-border e-commerce, and fintech innovation. Future Tajikistan-China cooperation could focus on digital investment cooperation platforms, cross-border data connectivity, intelligent project management systems, and digital trade facilitation.
"Computing power is becoming a new form of regional infrastructure. China and Central Asia can explore complementary investments in green data centers, cloud platforms, and high-performance computing," said Charymuhammet Shallyyev, Director of the CAREC Institute. He added that countries should share computing resources, aggregate demand, and improve energy efficiency, while integrating digital connectivity into the planning of Central Asia's transport, energy, and economic corridors, so as to accelerate regional digital integration.
Participants noted that while trade volumes in Central Asia continue to expand, the region also faces challenges such as fragmented information, poor coordination of business processes across countries, and cumbersome procedures. In the future, a digital ecosystem that integrates multiple stakeholders from Central Asian countries should be developed to accelerate the implementation of investment projects.
Yao Sai, founder of the Silk Road Golden Bridge International Cooperation Center, the forum organizer, introduced that the center has developed the "Silk Road Golden Bridge · Global Digital Gateway" digital platform, which leverages big data to quickly identify Kazakh partners with the highest compatibility for Chinese enterprises, compressing pre-cooperation due diligence from several months to just two weeks. The platform provides full-cycle support services for overseas-bound enterprises across over 80 scenarios, including customs clearance, legal affairs, and taxation. In the future, the platform's services will be extended across the entire Central Asian region.
Two thousand years ago, camel caravans crossed vast deserts to open the Silk Road that linked East and West. Today, riding on data and guided by trust, a new "Digital Silk Road" is injecting fresh momentum into China-Central Asia cooperation.
Source: Global Digital Economy Conference 2026
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