The Week Ahead: Kcell's register date, Nvidia in Astana and the ITU in Doha

The corridor's week opens four days after the presidents of Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan inaugurated the Trans-Caspian fibre-optic line, a cable of about 380 km between Sumgayit and Aktau with a stated capacity of more than 400 terabits per second, according to the Azerbaijani presidency. Six dates follow, each with the document behind it.

• Monday 19 October. Kcell's shareholder register is fixed at 00:00 Almaty time for an extraordinary meeting on 17 November at 11:00 in Almaty, which has a single item: the merger of KazNet Media JSC into Kcell. If that meeting does not take place, it moves to 18 November, according to the notice published on the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange.
• Friday 23 October. Nvidia founder and chief executive Jensen Huang is scheduled to visit Astana for a fireside chat with Zhaslan Madiyev, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development, The Times of Central Asia reported, citing a ministry notice. In June the government announced a $10 billion package of agreements with Firebird for a GPU cluster at Data Center Valley in Ekibastuz.
• Friday 6 November. VEON reports results for the quarter to 30 September, the company said. The quarter includes the 29 September launch of Starlink's satellite-to-mobile service by its unit Beeline Kazakhstan.
• Monday 9 to Friday 27 November. The ITU Plenipotentiary Conference meets at the Doha Exhibition and Convention Center. Member states elect the Secretary-General, the Deputy Secretary-General and the directors of the three bureaux, and choose the 48 members of the ITU Council and the members of the Radio Regulations Board for 2027 to 2030, according to an ITU media advisory.
• Monday 16 November. VEON holds its Capital Markets Day, with details on attendance to follow, according to the same announcement.
• End of December. The Kazakh government expects the main data centre and energy buildings at Data Center Valley to be erected by the end of the year, with commissioning works finished in May 2027 and a first 50 MW facility in operation in June 2027, according to its review of the project on 13 August.

For the Caspian line itself, no date for commercial service appears in the documents reviewed. The Kazakh government said in August that ground infrastructure and system testing were due to be completed in the autumn, Silk Way TV reported.