A production facility for robots using artificial intelligence technologies will be established in Almaty at the site of the special economic zone "Park of Innovative Technologies." NERO Group, together with China's UBTECH Robotics, will localize the production of such products, with total investment in the project estimated at $440 million, according to infohub.kz.
NERO Group head Yerlan Nabiyev shared details of the initiative during the "Kazakhstan – China" investment forum. The agreement with UBTECH Robotics, one of China's leading robot manufacturers, was signed back in July. Of the stated sum, $340 million is allocated for the transfer of UBTECH's humanoid robot production technologies, while $100 million represents NERO Group's own investment.
"First of all, this is localization not only of the production part. It's R&D (research and development), it's research, programming, the creation of a large number of jobs, and, of course, production facilities. I want to note that on the territory of the SEZ 'PIT' we are already building a large center for these needs, with an area of 25,000 square meters," said Yerlan Nabiyev.
According to the company head, the focus is not on entertainment but on the use of robots in education, services, manufacturing, logistics, and social support.
NERO Group intends to pay special attention to introducing robotics into education. The company head emphasized that schoolchildren should be able to assemble robots, program them, and create original Kazakhstani robots. Under a government program, the company will provide schools with the necessary tools for this free of charge.
"Our goal by the end of this year, per the instruction of the Almaty city akimat, is to provide around 30 schools in the city with robots. Next year, we plan—by 2028—to provide the remaining 200, a little over 200 schools with them. The declared output is 50,000 educational robot kits, that is, these robotics kits. As for service and humanoid robots, we will start localization in the second quarter of next year, 2027. The declared production capacity is 1,000 robot units," noted the head of NERO Group.
It was previously reported that a plant for the production of humanoid and educational robots would be built in Almaty. It will become the first foreign manufacturing facility of one of the world leaders in robotics, UBTECH Robotics.