At the 59th session of the Asian Development Bank in Samarkand, ADB President Masato Kanda announced the launch of the ambitious "Asia-Pacific Digital Highway" initiative with $20 billion in funding.

The goal is to connect 650 million people to broadband internet by 2035, 200 million of whom will be connected for the first time. Simultaneously, a regional AI Center was launched with the support of South Korea. Uzbekistan, which in a few years transformed from a digital laggard into a regional leader, was in the spotlight.

Before 2017, fast internet in the country was almost exclusively in Tashkent and was a luxury. Today, all schools are connected to high-speed internet, Uzbekistan has entered the top 20 countries with the cheapest internet access, and more than 50 foreign companies register in the IT park monthly.

The government launched the "Five Million AI Leaders" program, purchased Coursera courses, and made them available to the population at a symbolic price. The result is impressive: Uzbekistan ranked first in the world in the share of active online learners, and third after the USA and India in the number of people studying generative AI.