In Tashkent this week, technology is being presented as a national economic strategy. ICT Week Uzbekistan runs from September 22 to 25, 2026, at CAEx, with gatherings devoted to startups, venture capital, IT outsourcing, cloud services and artificial intelligence. Uzbekistan’s Ministry of Digital Technologies says Uzum, which combines e-commerce, fintech and banking services, is the title partner. Its presence gives the program a tangible question: how can the growth of a local platform become useful digital capacity for an entire economy?
Uzum as showcase and test
The ministry describes Uzum as the country’s first technology unicorn. That label attracts investor attention, but it does not, on its own, explain the strength of a business model. The company’s significance lies more in combining several everyday activities: shopping, paying, accessing financial services and providing tools to merchants. When these activities intersect, a platform can become market infrastructure, affecting sellers as well as consumers.
That concentration also raises questions the conference cannot avoid. A marketplace that handles payments has valuable information about transactions and user behavior. Partners need to understand who controls that information, whether merchants can switch providers and what terms apply to small businesses. The growth promise must therefore also be judged by whether companies can join the platform without becoming entirely dependent on it.
According to the ministry’s published program, several Uzum leaders will speak during the week, including technology and product chief Kevin Handa, strategy cofounder Nikolay Seleznyov and e-commerce executive Ruslan Namazov. On September 24, the company plans a discussion about the shift from industry to platforms. The announcement sets out an intention and a schedule; it does not yet establish that the session produced new decisions or investment.
Four days to speak with investors
IT Park Uzbekistan presents the event as twelve summits and forums gathered at one venue. September 22 features startups, venture capital and an Uzbek-Japanese IT forum. The following day focuses on enterprise and outsourcing. September 24 is set to host a Startup World Cup stage and a gaming program; on September 25, cloud computing, AI and cybersecurity become more prominent. The schedule suggests several ways into the market, rather than a single story centered on one company.
IT Park’s Berlin representative office explicitly addresses businesses assessing a location or a source of IT services. It describes a network of more than 3,000 residents. That figure should be understood as the ecosystem presented by the organizer, not mistaken for a count of profitable exporters. For a foreign buyer, the decisive criteria remain team quality, contracts, data protection and reliable service delivery.
A regional ambition to put to the test
The event’s international interest lies in the position Tashkent wants to occupy among neighboring markets, investors and foreign customers. Combining fintech, e-commerce and professional services could help local businesses reach a wider client base. Yet a large conference program is not a measure of actual exports. Partnerships announced after the event, their duration and the jobs they create will be firmer indicators than attendance alone.
The organizers also offer a story about moving up the value chain: from providing IT services to creating products and platforms. That takes more than financing. A young company must be able to recruit and retain specialists, win customers and rely on dependable infrastructure. Investors, in turn, need to understand local rules and opportunities beyond the domestic market. ICT Week can bring these groups together, but the promised change will be built through contracts and verifiable delivery.
The distinction is particularly useful in AI. A startup challenge or cloud demonstration shows the ability to imagine applications. A deployed product needs usable data, a team able to maintain it and customers willing to pay for a specific outcome. In Tashkent, the best signal will therefore be less the number of presentations than the way companies explain their use cases, costs and technical limits.
ICT Week Uzbekistan thus portrays a digital economy seeking recognition as a place of production, rather than merely a market to enter. Uzum is its most visible showcase, while discussions of capital, outsourcing and infrastructure broaden the picture. Once the four days end, the important questions will be straightforward: which agreements were signed, which companies found customers and which projects actually moved forward? That is the scale on which Tashkent’s bet should be measured.
For international partners, the week also offers a chance to compare promises with practical requirements. A procurement team may ask whether a provider can support several languages, document its security practices and keep a project running after the first contract. An investor may want to know how a startup earns revenue without relying on promotional spending. These questions are less photogenic than a stage presentation, but they determine whether a regional technology hub can build durable relationships. The event gives Uzbekistan a chance to make those conversations visible; the answers will emerge through work done after the delegates leave Tashkent.
