Kyivstar and the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine have selected Google Gemma for the national language model of Ukraine
On December 1, 2025, in Dubai and Kyiv, VEON Ltd. announced that Kyivstar, in cooperation with the WINWIN AI Center of Excellence at the Ministry of Digital Transformation, has selected Google Gemma as the underlying model for the development of the Ukrainian National Large Language Model (LLM). This project is aimed at developing the Ukrainian language identity, preserving a clear context, and ensuring the security of sensitive data processing.
Source - Veon
In addition, the choice of Google as a partner strengthens technological and economic ties between Ukraine and the United States. The main goal of the development is to create a platform that will reflect the uniqueness of the Ukrainian language and culture, providing accurate results and reducing risks in the LLM functioning. The completed model is expected to become the basis for new AI services for the public and private sectors, including education, finance, and healthcare.
Kyivstar plans to optimize Gemma for the Ukrainian language by refining and training the model on specially selected data. This project is part of VEON's strategy to overcome the language barrier in AI across the countries where the company operates, following the introduction of KazLLM in Kazakhstan and the Urdu LLM initiative in Pakistan.
