Identification of promising areas for the formation of IT clusters in Kazakhstan regions: methodological approaches and their testing

The development of regional economy in Kazakhstan goes on under the strong influence of new global financial, economic and technological changes, which is manifested in the emergence and growing influence of new risk factors. Meanwhile, in order to increase their competitiveness, most of the world powers are beginning to use revolutionary innovation technology that imply the transition to a new stage of digital industrialization, which has been named “Industry 4.0”. A new development concept “Industry 4.0” is based on improving competitiveness through the enhanced integration of industry and information technology; it requires not only a rapid exchange of data and performance of well-defined operations, but also a willingness to solve variable and “intelligent” tasks. This requires not only scientific and technological but also information breakthrough, for example, communications between intelligent products of “Internet things”, smart cars and portable devices (laptops, ultrabooks, netbooks, tablets, smartphones, mobile phones), i.e. promotion of accelerated development of IT-sphere integration. In this regard, there emerged a need to create specialized platforms of a new generation, which combine the elements of innovation, information and digital infrastructures. The role of such specialized sites can be assumed by IT clusters as “growth poles” of a new generation, aimed at transferring advanced IT and digital technology to a wide periphery of the country. Today, successfully functioning IT clusters provide unique opportunities for owning the markets in the era of information revolution. New challenges require the development of scientifically based approaches to regional policy aimed at the formation of a new model of knowledge-based economy of the region through the creation of IT-clusters on the basis of innovation infrastructure, information and digital platforms. Such policy should be based first of all on the modern imperatives of increasing the role of IT and digital technology that will help meet all expectations of modern society that is moving toward a new technological stage “Industry 4.0”. In this regard, there is a need to develop methodological approaches and test them to identify promising areas of formation of IT clusters in order to strengthen the innovative trend of industrialization and increase the competitiveness of Kazakhstan regions.