The Ukraine national LLM project is moving closer to launch. Kyivstar and the Ministry of Digital Transformation have officially selected Google Gemma as the core technology for building the country’s first AI model trained entirely on Ukrainian data.
Why Google Gemma Was Chosen for the Ukraine National LLM
The project will be operationally led by Kyivstar, while Google’s Vertex AI infrastructure will provide the computational backbone for training and deployment.
According to the announcement, the upcoming model will be deeply localized — optimized for Ukrainian language usage, regional dialects, cultural context and domain-specific terminology. This is meant to ensure that the LLM can understand and respond naturally within Ukraine’s linguistic environment.
Representatives of the WINWIN AI Competence Center (the initiative’s strategic partner) stated that Google Gemma was chosen after comparing several alternative base models. Key factors included Gemma’s performance on Ukrainian-language datasets and its flexibility for secure fine-tuning.
Danylo Tsvok, Head of Artificial Intelligence at the Ministry of Digital Transformation and CEO of WINWIN AI, emphasized that this choice helps reduce linguistic bias and minimize ethical risks during training.
How the Ukraine national LLM will be used
Once completed, the national LLM is expected to support a wide range of applications — from analyzing regulatory and legal documents to powering specialized AI tools for education, finance, medicine, and public services.
Kaan Terzioğlu, CEO of VEON Group (the parent company of Kyivstar), noted that the initiative will significantly enhance the intelligence capabilities available to Ukrainian companies and government institutions.
The project is part of VEON’s broader strategy to narrow the AI language gap across its markets. The company has already rolled out locally-adapted LLMs in Kazakhstan and Pakistan.
What’s next for Ukraine’s AI ecosystem
Work on Ukraine’s national LLM began in June 2025. In November, Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov announced a new strategic collaboration with NVIDIA, with the first joint initiative being Diia AI LLM — another step toward strengthening Ukraine’s technological sovereignty.
For Ukraine, the combination of a Ukraine national LLM based on Google Gemma and Diia AI LLM could become the backbone of a fully localized AI stack — from citizen services to enterprise solutions.
In practice, the Ukraine national LLM could become a core layer for many digital services. Government agencies may use it to analyse large volumes of regulatory and legal documents, generate draft responses and speed up routine paperwork.
Businesses will be able to build sector-specific copilots on top of the model – for fintech, telecom, logistics or education – without having to train their own systems from scratch. Because the Ukraine national LLM is optimised for local language and context, it should better understand Ukrainian terminology, names of institutions and typical document formats.
Another important use case is public-facing AI assistants. Chatbots powered by the Ukraine national LLM could help citizens navigate state services, grants or tax questions in natural Ukrainian, reducing the load on call centres and offline offices.
Find about Diia here – https://digitalstate.gov.ua/
Read more.
About the Author
