Presight’s operations abroad have caught analysts’ attention in recent months as the G42-backed AI firm is expanding operations across foreign markets, specifically the CIS region.
In May, Presight opened its first office in Astana and now the firm is setting its eyes on further expansion within Kazakhstan and also the Caucasus.
Speaking from Abu Dhabi, I sat down with the Presight CEO Thomas Pramotedham to discuss the firm’s operations in Abu Dhabi and expansion plans for the CIS.
Astana to Almaty
The firm already developed an urban management system for Astana Smart City, supported Kazakhstan’s first supercomputer, invested in research and development and taken on the digitisation of the country’s airport, according to the CEO.
The Kazakhstan operation is now set to expand to Almaty, the country’s second largest city, while its regional remit will extend into Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and parts of Azerbaijan.
“[Astana] is our Central Asia base,” the CEO said. “The workforce is incredibly talented. The president has a very strong air vision which is chairing himself. We have strong projects.”
The expansion reflects Presight’s broader strategy of taking AI beyond infrastructure and into operational applications, with the company targeting markets where it can deploy technologies across government, urban management and critical infrastructure.
Almaty to Baku
The Kazakh team will support projects beyond the country, while Presight is also creating a second office in Azerbaijan, located in the country’s technology park.
“We are creating a second office, Azerbaijan, in their tech park. I think we’ll probably announce it maybe in a month or two. But right now we already have projects running and the caucuses will be served,” the executive said.
The Caucasus and Central Asia expansion gives Presight a regional operating model rather than a series of isolated projects. Kazakhstan will serve as one of the company’s principal bases, with Azerbaijan providing a second point from which to serve the Caucasus.
“From Astana and from Azerbaijan,” the Pramotedham said when asked how the wider regional footprint would be managed.
From AI Investment to Deployment
The regional push comes as Presight places greater emphasis on applied AI and near-term commercial impact.
The company’s investment strategy is focused on technologies that can be deployed into existing workflows rather than AI development with an exclusively long-term horizon, such as infrastructure investment.
“I think now. The expectation is now,” Pro said when asked when AI investments should begin producing returns.
“We focus on applied intelligence. So we focus on companies that have a domain intelligence agentic or otherwise. Right? Domain intelligence that can be applied to today’s workflows.”
“The accelerator has that each one of them, it’s a proven case in their home country, deliver impact results, made money and we want to scale,” Pramotedham said.
AI-Applied Impact in Kazakhstan
The distinction is important for Presight’s Central Asian expansion, where the company is already working on specific applications rather than waiting for a future AI market to develop.
In Kazakhstan, those applications include smart-city management, supercomputing, research and development and airport digitisation.
The strategy also mirrors Presight’s approach elsewhere.
Presight and ADNOC
In the UAE, the company is targeting energy, government services and smart cities as three of its dominant areas for AI deployment.
“I think energy, government services, smart cities. These are our three dominant ones,” the CEO said when asked about the highest value-added domains Presight serves.
Kazakhstan: CIS Regional Base
Kazakhstan’s role in Presight’s strategy is broader than establishing a presence in one of Central Asia’s largest markets.
The company’s existing projects provide an operational base from which it can pursue opportunities in neighbouring economies, while the planned Almaty office is expected to deepen that footprint.
The Kazakhstan team would support Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, alongside some parts of Azerbaijan, while the planned Azerbaijan office would provide another regional base.
The model is consistent with Presight’s wider preference for building AI capabilities around specific sectors and customers rather than simply selling technology.
“You don’t want to sell something to an institution. We want to build with,” the executive said.
That philosophy is also evident in Presight’s financial-services strategy, including its collaboration with Banco Santander to develop agentic AI and hyper-personalisation embedded into the customer journey.
“We’re building with and not building for,” the CEO said.
The same approach is being applied to Presight’s work with Abu Dhabi’s energy sector, where its current AI activity includes exploration and production, with the company expanding towards downstream operations.
Long Term AI infrastructure
Presight’s Central Asian expansion sits alongside a longer-term infrastructure strategy within the wider G42 group.
While applied AI projects are intended to produce impact now, the group is simultaneously investing in data centres and computing capacity that will take longer to build.
The executive said the longer-term objective in the UAE is to develop a large domestic computing facility alongside an ecosystem spanning models, applications, domain expertise and talent.
Yet the Central Asian strategy illustrates the other side of that investment equation: putting existing AI capabilities to work in markets where governments and major institutions are already digitising infrastructure now.
For Kazakhstan, that means smart-city systems, supercomputing and airport digitisation. For the wider region, it creates a platform from which Presight can pursue projects across Central Asia and the Caucasus.
As Presight moves into Almaty and prepares its Azerbaijan operation, Kazakhstan is emerging as a launchpad for a broader Central Asian AI push – linking the UAE technology ecosystem with a region where governments are increasingly investing in digital infrastructure and AI-led public services.
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