At AI & Digital Bridge 2026, the winners of the Astana Hub Battle were announced.

The final of Astana Hub Battle 2026 took place in Astana at the international technology forum AI & Digital Bridge 2026. This year, 50 startups from Central Eurasian countries competed for a prize fund of $100,000. Winners were determined in four categories.

The total prize fund of Astana Hub Battle 2026 amounted to $100,000. In addition, contest partners provided participants with additional technological resources: Kazakhtelecom — GPU resources worth $25,000, Yandex Kazakhstan — cloud resources worth 10 million tenge for further development and scaling of projects.

The final jury included Deputy Prime Minister — Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development of the Republic of Kazakhstan Zhaslan Madiev, CEO of Higgsfield AI Alex Mashrabov, Chairman of the Board of JSC "Kazakhtelecom" Bagdat Musin, SpaceX investor and founder of Sofreh Capital Shervin Pishevar, and founder of the venture ecosystem MA7 Ventures Murat Abdrakhmanov.

Fifty projects advanced to the semi-finals, from which 14 were selected for the final: CYBERPACK.AI, Aman, MYupgrade, Hi Doctor, Astana Dynamics, BEST Vision, Spacelab, Welcome Video AI, NCSpeech, Pulsar AI, AuaSense, M3TRIQ, Behype, and Resti.

As a result of Astana Hub Battle 2026, four startups emerged as winners, each receiving $25,000: CYBERPACK.AI won in the Impact Maker category, NCSpeech in the Market Shaper category, Astana Dynamics in the Growth Engine category, and Aman in the Investor’s Choice category.

Additionally, Aman received an extra grant of $200,000 from MA7 Ventures. Contest partners also provided technological resources to specific teams: Pulsar AI received cloud resources from Yandex Kazakhstan worth 10 million tenge, and M3TRIQ received GPU resources from Kazakhtelecom worth $25,000.

Astana Hub Battle is focused on startups with a ready product at the MVP or PMF stages. In 2026, the contest attracted 292 applications from 14 countries, including startups from the USA, UAE, Turkey, Switzerland, Malaysia, and other countries.

AI & Digital Bridge 2026 was held within the framework of the Year of Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence in Kazakhstan and became the central international event of AI MONTH — a month of events uniting initiatives in the fields of artificial intelligence, digital technologies, entrepreneurship, and human capital development.