Kazakhstan and Jordan bring AI security to Central Asia’s first Aqaba summit

Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and Jordan’s King Abdullah II co-hosted an AI-security summit in Astana on November 6, 2026. The gathering brought Central Asian leaders into the Aqaba Process, a forum founded to counter terrorism and violent extremism. It was the process’s first meeting in Central Asia, according to The Astana Times.

AI enters a counterterrorism forum

Kazakhstan’s presidential office identified the summit’s theme as “Security in the Field of Artificial Intelligence.” That places the technology within a diplomatic process whose established purpose is to help governments understand security threats and agree on practical responses.

King Abdullah launched the Aqaba Process in 2015. Its participants include heads of state and leaders of intelligence agencies, defense institutions and international organizations. The forum’s remit is therefore different from a meeting devoted only to AI development: its starting point is a shared understanding of threats.

The Astana gathering also drew participants beyond governments. Representatives of international organizations, the gaming industry and civil society joined the discussions, according to a November 9 opinion article by Allen Alekeyev in The Astana Times. Alekeyev is deputy head of research at the Nightingale Int. analytical center.

A regional voice, not a joint policy

Alongside the two hosts, attendees included Tajikistan’s President Emomali Rahmon, Turkmenistan’s President Serdar Berdimuhamedov and Uzbekistan’s President Shavkat Mirziyoyev. Azerbaijan sent parliamentary speaker Sahiba Gafarova, while Kyrgyzstan was represented by Foreign Minister Zheenbek Kulubaev, according to Kazakhstan’s presidential office.

Tokayev said the meeting should allow Central Asia to present its own vision of AI security, Alekeyev wrote. That is an ambition to shape the discussion, rather than evidence that the participating governments have already settled on a common policy.

Alekeyev interprets the summit as a diplomatic opportunity for Kazakhstan to advance a regional agenda without choosing between Washington and Beijing. He notes that neither the United States nor China appeared among the participants named by organizers. That observation concerns the published participant list; it does not establish that neither country had any involvement.