What was announced officially
On 18 August 2026 the President’s annual open dialogue with entrepreneurs took place in Khiva. The press release on the President’s website says the “Artificial Intelligence — Partner for 10,000 Enterprises” programme will be launched. Enterprises will be compensated for 50% of the costs of implementing AI. They will get free access to a supercomputer to develop models for new products. At least $100 million will go to the first stage (president.uz).
What the media added
Reports of the same speech contain details the press release does not. The practice started with automating the textile industry and is being extended to electrical engineering, construction materials and the food industry. Enterprises in these industries will be reimbursed half of their spending on automated management systems. Ready-made AI solutions for business will be placed on an open platform. The first supercomputer cluster started working in July at the Digital Government Project Management Centre, and its capacity will triple in 2027. Research and development costs will also be covered by the budget (Spot, Podrobno.uz, Yuz.uz).
The list of industries comes from media reports, not the press release. Whether it is closed does not follow from these texts.
Which rules do not exist yet
As of 23 September 2026 we found no legal act setting out the reimbursement procedure. So it is still unknown:
- who can take part — only the four named industries or any enterprise, and whether there are size or revenue requirements;
- what counts as implementation costs — development, licences, hardware, integration, staff training;
- when the money is paid — before implementation, after it, in parts;
- which documents are needed and how it is proven that AI has actually been implemented;
- whether there are requirements for the contractor — for example, that the solution is built by a local company or an IT Park resident;
- how the open platform works and whether a solution must be listed there to qualify.
All of this will be settled by a document that does not exist yet. Anyone confidently explaining today “how to get the 50%” is retelling their own guesses.
What can be done before the rules appear
The procedure is unknown, but some things will be useful under any procedure. They are useful without the programme too.
- Pick one process and measure the “before”. How many requests, how many hours, how many errors, what it costs. Whatever the procedure turns out to be, a “this is how it was, this is how it is” case is easier to make if “how it was” was written down in advance. How to choose the process, we covered in what to automate first. For comparison: the cotton subsidy under Decree PP-246 is paid only after satellite monitoring has confirmed the crop was grown.
- Keep AI spending separate from other IT costs. A separate contract, separate acts and invoices. If only AI implementation costs are reimbursed, they will have to be separated from everything else, and it is better if they are not spread across a general support contract.
- Pay no one “for taking part in the programme” before the rules are published. There is nothing to take part in yet.
- Follow the primary sources: lex.uz, the President’s website, the Ministry of Digital Technologies, IT Park. We keep the rules on AI that are already in force, with links to each, in our AI in business in Uzbekistan reference, and update it when new data comes out.
Us and this programme
We are a software developer and an IT Park resident, and we put AI into business processes, so we follow the programme for an obvious reason. Whether our projects will qualify for reimbursement will only become clear from the rules. We will not promise clients half their money back before the rules are published. When the document comes out, we will update this article.
What we don’t know
The official source is the English version of the press release on the President’s website. The industries, the open platform and the Digital Government Project Management Centre are mentioned in media reports. We searched for a legal act as of 23 September 2026 and did not find one, but we may have missed a draft published for discussion. Check the date of this article.
How the implementation itself works — stages, timelines, what the price is made of — is on AI implementation for business.
If you want to prepare one process for implementation in advance — with a “before” measurement and a metric — describe it in the questionnaire on our home page or message us on Telegram. The breakdown takes 48 hours and is free.
