Kazakhstan is a signatory of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and has signed and ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

Kazakhstan had just one fast breeder reactor in operation at Aktau, which was the world's first commercial fast breeder reactor (FBR) in 1973. This was shut down in 1999. There are proposals for a new nuclear power plant near Lake Balkhash in the south of the country near Almaty.

A July 2006 joint venture with Russia's AtomStroyExport envisages development and marketing of small and medium-sized reactors, starting with OKBM's VBER-300 as baseline for Kazakh units. AtomStroyExport expects to build the initial one.

At Kurchatov (aka Semipalatinsk-21) on the former Semipalatinsk nuclear test site three research reactors owned by the National Nuclear Centre are operated by the Institute of Atomic Energy. A fourth is at Almaty. The three larger ones are tank-type units of 6, 10 and 60 MW, the newest is a 400 kW high-temperature gas reactor. All were supplied by Russia and use highly enriched fuel.

The Ulba Metallurgical Plant at Ust Kamenogorsk in the east of the country was commissioned in 1949. Since 1973 it has produced nuclear fuel pellets from Russian-enriched uranium which are used in Russian and Ukrainian VVER and RBMK reactors. Some of this product incorporates gadolinium and erbium burnable poisons. Other exports are to the USA. It briefly produced fuel for submarines and satellite reactors. It is majority owned by Kazatomprom and 34% by Russia's TVEL and has major new investment under way. In 2003 it secured ISO 14001 accreditation.

Kazakhstan is a signatory to the Central Asian Nuclear Weapons Free Zone.