Alibaba, Baidu, and Geely: Freedom Has Agreed to Collaborate with Chinese IT Giants
Kazakhstani residents will be able to pay for purchases on Chinese marketplaces directly in tenge
Freedom Holding has agreed to collaborate with leading Chinese technology companies / Photo: freedom24.com
The Kazakhstani holding company Freedom Holding Corp. has signed cooperation agreements with leading Chinese technology and industrial companies—Alipay, WeChat Pay, Alibaba Cloud, Baidu, and Geely. Timur Turlov, the holding company’s founder and CEO, announced this on his Telegram channel.
In partnership with WeChat Pay and Ant International (the operator of Alipay), the holding company is developing a cross-border payment system. Users of the Freedom SuperApp in Kazakhstan will be able to pay directly in tenge for purchases on Chinese marketplaces such as Taobao, AliExpress, and 1688, as well as pay via QR code at stores in China. In turn, Chinese tourists in Kazakhstan will be able to pay using the Alipay and WeChat Pay services they are accustomed to through Freedom Bank’s point-of-sale terminals.
In partnership with Alibaba Cloud, the holding company will develop cloud services based at the Akashi commercial data center in Astana. As Turlov emphasized, this is the first data center in Central Asia to meet the highest Tier IV reliability standard. “Partnering with a strong player will allow us to train engineers and launch new digital products for both Kazakhstan and the entire Central Asian region,” noted the head of Freedom Holding.
In collaboration with Baidu, the holding company is preparing to launch the Apollo Go autonomous taxi service in Kazakhstan—one of the most advanced autonomous driving systems in the world, according to Turlov. Together with automaker Geely, the company plans to develop infrastructure for electric vehicles and implement artificial intelligence technologies in the automotive industry.
“These agreements are not isolated projects, but part of a unified plan to create a modern technology ecosystem in Kazakhstan. Based on this, we will be able to develop our own expertise, train world-class engineers, and create products that are competitive both domestically and in international markets,” Turlov concluded.
This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor
