Central Asia's IT ecosystem

Over two hundred IT experts discussed the prospects for artificial intelligence and technological entrepreneurship in the region. The ambition is not only to be users, but to develop local skills capable of competing in the innovation market.

Bishkek (AsiaNews) - The international conference Central Asia TechConf 2025, one of the most important IT events in the entire region, was held in recent days in Bishkek, Tashkent and Dushanbe. It was organised by the company A1Project with the support of the Central Asia Oracle User Group (Casoug), the International Bank of Tajikistan and the University of World Economy and Diplomacy at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Uzbekistan.

The conference brought together over two hundred specialists from Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and other countries, IT experts (analysts, developers, data engineers, server administrators), directors of private companies, representatives of state structures, the banking and telecommunications sectors, international organisations and embassies.

The meeting confirmed that Central Asia is currently forming its own IT ecosystem and needs active spaces that seamlessly unite and connect industry professionals, states and international business.

Among the participants, world-class experts in the fields of databases, DevOps automation systems, artificial intelligence and technology entrepreneurship attracted great interest.

Among them were Sandesh Rao, Oracle's vice president of Applied AI, one of the leading specialists in Retrieval-Augmented Generation systems and intellectual agents; Alex Nuijten from the Netherlands, director of allApex and one of the renowned experts on Oracle Apex; Sean Scott from the US, director of Oracle Ace and author of the book Oracle in Docker, an expert in highly accessible and content-rich databases; Erik van Roon from the Netherlands, a specialist in SQL and PL/SQL with experience in setting up large data migration projects in Europe and the US, Mirela Ardelyan (Romania/Austria), vice-president of the European Oracle Users Association and director of Oracle Ace in Romania, and Rustam Khodžaev, founder and administrator of the international IT company A1 Project, the first and only Oracle Ace in all of Central Asia.

One of the most memorable moments of the conference was the visit to American Space Dushanbe, where the many experts were able to observe the high level of involvement of local youth, with their ability to ask questions of significant professional content and a great tendency towards development and progress in knowledge.

Many noted that such a high level of interest in technology among young people is quite rare in many other countries.

The conference organiser, Rustam Khodžaev, noted that ‘the purpose of the event is not only to exchange knowledge, but also to form a professional community capable of raising IT standards at the regional level and working on an international scale’.

For this reason, the growth of young specialists interested in absorbing the experience of world-class experts is ‘the main resource we need, and one that we must encourage in every way.’

One of the topics discussed was the use of Oracle technologies and products in banking, telecommunications and government systems, using artificial intelligence in well-established professional modes and with increasingly innovative approaches to security and data management.

The conference showed that there is a great demand in the region for professional knowledge in this field and for platforms for its dissemination. Oracle technologies underpin most of the most critical IT processes, and Central Asia no longer sees itself merely as a consumer of foreign IT products, but as a region capable of developing its own engineering skills and offering exportable goods.

At the end of the conference, the organisers confirmed that Central Asia TechConf will continue to attract experts from around the world in various forms of meeting and communication, and in 2026, they plan to further expand the geographical composition of the organisation by adding other topics such as AI in the public sector, financial technologies, IT security and training technologies.