News
AI, startups, tech and digital transformation — Kazakhstan & the world
The world's largest payment network is integrating digital asset technology into its global infrastructure. The deal reflects a structural shift in how payment systems are positioning themselves around stablecoin settlements. Financial institutions and fintechs will be able to offer customers stablecoin and tokenized deposit payments without being tied to closed ecosystems.
On March 18, 2026, Rubi announced a $7 million funding round to scale the enzymatic process of converting CO2 into cellulose for textiles. Support from H&M and major retailers underscores the shift in fashion towards a circular economy. This is critical as climate regulations tighten and demand for sustainable materials grows by 25% annually. New opportunities for exporting green technologies are opening up for businesses in Central Asia.
Today, March 18, 2026, Freedom Holding Corp. announced that its subsidiary bank in Kazakhstan has been awarded its first rating by Moody's. The Ba3 rating underscores the bank's strong capitalization and growth in digital services. This is important as the company expands its presence in Georgia, Turkey, and Tajikistan, strengthening its position in Central Asia and the Middle East. For Kazakhstani fintech, this opens the door to new investments and partnerships.
The announcement was made at the GTC 2026 conference by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. The trillion-dollar order book reflects the fierce competition between Amazon, Microsoft, and Google to build powerful data centers for training large language models. Simultaneously, Nvidia is expanding its portfolio by releasing new processors for agent AI, which could redefine the architecture of modern data centers.
Video Rebirth has announced the final closing of an $80 million funding round, including the recently raised $30 million. Investments came from AMD Ventures, Hyundai, and leading Asian venture firms. The company plans to accelerate the commercialization of its flagship product, Bach, and expand its presence in global markets.
On March 18, 2026, Google Research announced the hiring of Benedek Rozemberczki from Isomorphic Labs, an Alphabet subsidiary focused on AI in biology. This transition highlights the active talent rotation in leading AI labs. For businesses, this means accelerated developments in healthcare and scientific computing, especially as competition for experts peaks.
On March 16, 2026, AWS announced the integration of Cerebras CS-3, combining Trainium for prefill with WSE for decoding. This opens up access for businesses to open LLMs and Nova models at ultra-high speeds. Companies can process real-time requests, reducing AI infrastructure costs just as competition in analytics and ML peaks.
The new POCO X8 Pro Max was released on March 17, 2026, with a top-tier MediaTek Dimensity 9500s chip, which competes with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5. Tests show outstanding performance in heavy games like Wuthering Waves and Fortnite. The mobile technology market is exploding with new flagships, where MediaTek is surpassing Qualcomm in stability. This is important now, as gamers and developers seek powerful Android devices for AI and gaming.
Stryker officially confirmed the cyber incident in an SEC filing, reporting the breach in the Microsoft environment without signs of ransomware. The company restored systems by March 17, but the incident revealed vulnerabilities in identity management through Intune. This is the first major attack by pro-Iranian hackers on the U.S. linked to the Middle East conflict.
The Wiz deal gives Google instant expertise in cloud security for enterprises. The company is buying business trust in the race for AI workloads following Mandiant in 2022. Today this is critical: the multicloud solutions market is growing at 25% annually, and Google Cloud is lagging behind AWS and Azure.
The regulated payments platform dtcpay strengthens its position in Asia through a Visa partnership and focus on real-world stablecoin use cases. The investment arrives as the global digital payments market accelerates, with transactions expected to reach $33.5 trillion by 2030. This opens the path for mass adoption in business and retail today.
Today, March 17, 2026, at the Optical Fiber Communication Conference in Los Angeles, Corning announced Corning GlassWorks AI Solutions products. These developments optimize space, increase network capacity, and prepare infrastructure for exponential AI growth. This is critical now because network operators are building infrastructure to support future demands from artificial intelligence.
Kazakhstan's leading fintech company Kaspi.kz (Nasdaq: KSPI) published Form 20-F, detailing its super app performance and development strategy for 2025. The report demonstrates how the Kazakhstani platform integrates payments, marketplace, and financial services into a unified ecosystem, attracting millions of users. This is important for the region as it demonstrates Kazakhstan's potential as a fintech hub in Central Asia.
On March 17, 2026, Meta expanded its deal with Nebius to $27 billion, securing access to AI infrastructure clusters. This comes as Nvidia GTC conference begins, discussing global AI prospects. Technology market grows 1.2% on Nasdaq 100 despite geopolitical risks.
On March 17, 2026, Google officially completed the deal to purchase Wiz, a leader in cloud and AI security. The acquisition will enable Google to integrate Wiz technologies into Google Cloud, strengthening the company's position in the enterprise security market. The deal underscores growing demand for AI solutions amid accelerated business digitalization. For startups, this signals new opportunities for mergers with tech giants.
This recognition validates Fusemachines' expertise in developing production-grade AI solutions on AWS, including AI Studio, AI Engines, and AI Agents platforms. The status provides access to AWS funding for proof-of-concept projects and facilitates joint go-to-market efforts. For investors, this signals growing credibility of the company in enterprise AI, despite historical stock volatility following AI announcements.
At MWC 2026, analyst Rob Enderle summarized 10 announcements signaling the transition from ordinary smartphones to AI-oriented gadgets. Samsung at GTC 2026 presented LPDDR6 for smartphones with bandwidth of 30-35 Gbps and a 15% reduction in power consumption. This is changing the mobile industry right now, making AI accessible on edge devices.
Vulnerabilities in Skia and V8 enable remote code execution via a malicious website. This poses a critical threat to browsers used in corporate networks. Companies are urgently patching systems to prevent mass compromises. The incident is relevant today, as exploits are spreading rapidly.
At QCon London 2026, Form3 engineers shared their experience launching an active-active-active multi-cloud architecture for bank payments. This solution arose from regulator requirements to reduce concentration risks in a single cloud. Today, March 17, 2026, the Form3 story highlights real challenges and benefits of platform engineering in DevOps.
Form3 faced a requirement from the UK banking sector regulator to diversify cloud providers after 2021, when concerns arose about systemic risks of concentration on a single supplier. The company completely overhauled its architecture, migrating from an AWS-specific stack to a cloud-agnostic solution with Kubernetes, NATS JetStream, and CockroachDB. The solution proved its effectiveness during a major Google Cloud outage last summer, when payments continued seamlessly through the other clouds.
The agreement aims to develop Maxing Wallet, a seamless infrastructure for QR payments and settlements, as well as a Contribution-Reward system. This addresses the growing demand for stablecoins and QR payments in the global market, where cross-border transaction volumes are rapidly increasing. The partnership will strengthen FTFT's position in payment infrastructure, solving high-friction transaction issues. Crucially today: the market is restructuring, and such alliances will define 2026 leaders.
American Corning Incorporated announced breakthrough AI solutions for optical fiber networks at the Optical Fiber Communication Conference (OFC 2026), held March 17-19 in Los Angeles. Innovations include multicore fiber for increased density, micro-cables for inter-center connections, and co-packaged optics for GPU scaling. This is critical for AI infrastructure, where bandwidth demand is growing exponentially amid the generative AI boom.
On March 16, 2026, MarketBeat included Joint Stock Company Kaspi.kz in the list of key fintech stocks to watch. The Kazakh superapp reached 190 million shares and client accounts totaling 7.5 trillion tenge as of 2025. This underscores Kaspi's dominance in Central Asia's digital payments right now, as the ��egion accelerates digitalization.
Technology stocks rallied sharply on March 16, 2026, as inflation fears eased following a temporary decline in oil prices. The SPDR Select Sector Technology index rose nearly 2%, despite year-to-date losses due to doubts about the AI boom. This occurs amid a geopolitical crisis with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, where Brent crude exceeded $100 per barrel, threatening global inflation.
Veeva Systems (NYSE: VEEV), a leader in cloud technologies for life sciences, has acquired Ostro — an AI-based brand engagement platform. This will allow the integration of advanced AI tools into the commercial stack for pharmaceutical clients. The deal underscores the growing demand for AI in healthcare, especially as investors are actively investing in deep-tech.
NVIDIA officially launched the Vera Rubin platform with record-breaking specifications for artificial intelligence inference. The company also presented the Feynman architecture on TSMC's 1.6nm process and the NemoClaw platform for enterprise AI agents. This announcement comes at a time when investors were questioning the pace of AI industry development.
© 2024 Alashed IT. Все права защищены.
it.alashed.kz
