Uzbekistan and the USA sign memorandum on cooperation in artificial intelligence

In Uzbekistan, socially significant initiatives, including universities, scientific institutions, startups, and advisors to regional heads involved in developing digital technologies and artificial intelligence, will have the opportunity to use the AI infrastructure provided by the Ministry of Digital Technologies. The provision of these benefits is done either free of charge or at a discount, subject to passing a competitive selection process.

The procedure for providing these benefits has been officially approved by a government decree. For projects utilizing large language models, free access to the application programming interface is established for a period of up to six months. Within each calendar month, such projects can process up to ten million tokens—units of text that interact with the AI.

If a project's needs exceed the basic limit, an additional fifty million tokens per month can be requested, for which a 50% discount is provided. It is important to note that tokens not used in the current month do not roll over to the next period.

For working with other types of artificial intelligence models, different from large language models, participants are granted access to up to 120 gigabytes of video memory for six months. These computing resources are intended for tasks such as training, testing, verification, evaluation, and running computations.

The competitive selection of projects will be held twice a year—in July and November. Applications will be evaluated on a 100-point scale. Participants who disagree with the final results have the right to submit an electronic complaint to the appeals commission within three business days after the results are published. Reviewing such appeals takes five business days.

A restriction has been established whereby one user can participate in only one project. Furthermore, the obtained data cannot be used outside the stated purposes, transferred to third parties, or applied for commercial purposes unless explicitly permitted by law or contract. In addition, Uzbekistan plans to train one million young people annually in fields such as robotics, game development, and startup creation.

Uzbekistan has put forward a proposal to develop strategic cooperation with the United States in the field of critical minerals. This partnership should cover stages from geological exploration and raw material processing to the formation of local industrial clusters.

Foreign Minister Bakhtiyor Saidov announced this initiative during a ministerial meeting in the 'C5+1' format held in Samarkand. According to the Foreign Minister, successful implementation of such cooperation requires combining Central Asia's vast natural resources, developing markets, human potential, and favorable geographical location with American investments, technologies, and business experience.

Saidov also emphasized that Central Asia is transforming into a more consolidated region capable of independently shaping its own future and actively participating in global processes. He named strengthening economic ties, implementing advanced technologies, attracting investment, and expanding access to world markets as key areas for further interaction.

Furthermore, the minister highlighted that the stability and prosperity of Central Asia serve the interests of both the countries of the region and their international partners. During this meeting, Uzbekistan assumed co-chairmanship of the 'C5+1' secretariat, and Saidov stated his intention to ensure the continuity of current work and achieve tangible results on previously reached agreements.

The Foreign Minister noted the symbolism of choosing Samarkand for the meeting, as this is where the first 'C5+1' ministerial meeting took place in 2015. Over the past period, the agenda of the format has significantly expanded, and the mechanisms of interaction between the parties have strengthened.

Bakhtiyor Saidov expressed confidence that this meeting will be an important step towards deepening ties between Central Asia and the United States, which will allow mutual advantages to be transformed into long-term partnerships that bring real benefits to the populations of the countries.

It should also be noted that in Samarkand, Bakhtiyor Saidov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio signed the 'Artemis Accords' regarding peaceful space exploration. Thanks to this, Uzbekistan became the 77th country to adopt this document, which establishes the principles of international cooperation in the study of the Moon, Mars, and other celestial bodies.

Uzbekistan has officially joined the Artemis Accords, which establish the foundations for international cooperation in the peaceful study of the Moon, Mars, and other celestial bodies.

The document was signed in Samarkand by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Uzbekistan, Bakhtiyor Saidov, and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. According to Saidov's statement on social media, this agreement opens up new prospects for deepening Uzbekistan's cooperation with NASA and space agencies of other participating countries, as well as promoting the training of local specialists and the implementation of space technologies.

Thus, Uzbekistan has become the 77th country to ratify this document. The Accords stipulate the principles of peaceful use and exploration of outer space, covering objects such as the Moon, Mars, asteroids, and comets.

The signing was the result of bilateral negotiations between Saidov and Rubio. Prior to this, the parties had already held an initial meeting within the framework of the Dialogue on Expanded Strategic Partnership between Uzbekistan and the United States. Topics discussed at this meeting included trade, investment, energy, advanced technologies, space, and critical minerals.