Rashad Khaligov: Baku building four-level digital corridor between Europe, Asia

Azerbaijan is building a national strategic program for digital transformation, perceiving it as a single state-wide process rather than a set of scattered IT initiatives, Rashad Khaligov, Head of the Digital Development and Innovation Department at the Ministry of Digital Development and Transport of Azerbaijan, stated at the German-Azerbaijani conference in Baku, Report informs.

According to him, the main priorities for digitalization have been identified in the republic. In particular, the Concept of Digital Development was approved, as well as strategic documents in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) and cybersecurity. The central strategic document in this direction became the Action Plan for Accelerating Digital Development for 2026–2028, signed by the head of state. To ensure coordination of its execution, a Digital Development Council was created under the leadership of First Vice-President Mehriban Aliyeva.

Khaligov pointed out that the action plan is based on four priority areas: digitalization, artificial intelligence, innovations, and cybersecurity. The foundation for them is human capital development, infrastructure provision, the regulatory and legal framework, and the public administration system. The document contains 58 initiatives, work on which has already begun. Among them, 18 received priority status, including the formation of the National Data Lake House and combining all state services into a single myGov application.

Touching upon the topic of the Digital Corridor, Khaligov emphasized that in the digital era, the state does not confine itself to classical transit routes. To create a full-fledged digital hub, Baku is forming a four-tier architecture: reliable telecommunications infrastructure between Europe and Asia, data storage and processing facilities, computing resources for AI, and the final layer of digital services. He also noted that due to surplus energy resources and strengthening regional connectivity, Azerbaijan possesses significant competitive advantages to occupy a position as one of the key global sites for hosting computing power.