Kazakhstan Universities Develop Advanced Language Model KazLLM
A consortium of top universities in Kazakhstan is working on a new language model called KazLLM. This project is part of a broader plan to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) technologies into the country's economy, as discussed at a recent Government meeting.
Sayasat Nurbek, the Minister of Science and Higher Education, reported on the progress in science and technology. He highlighted three key areas of development. Firstly, the creation of a consortium to collect data for the KazLLM program, which includes several major institutions like Satbayev University, Nazarbayev University, and the Institute of Linguistics named after A. Baitursynov.
Data for KazLLM is being transferred to the Smart Data Ukimet system from various universities and government agencies. Over the past six months, around 1 billion word usages have been submitted.
Secondly, the focus is on training personnel. Fifteen new educational programs related to AI and technology have been introduced in 17 universities, involving 2,196 students across bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral levels. Programs are being developed with international partners, including a new AI school at Korkyt Ata University of Kyzylorda in collaboration with Seoul National University of Science and Technology.
Additionally, new initiatives include a branch of the City University of Hong Kong at KazUTZU named after K. Satpayev, which will offer AI programs, and an international research center on AI at D. Serikbaev State Technical University. A partnership with M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University will also introduce a new computing technologies program in the next academic year.
Thirdly, Kazakhstan is implementing a small supercomputer program at Satbayev University for complex calculations. A major upgrade is expected with new equipment from Singapore and a supercomputer from China, significantly boosting computational power.
Kazakhstan is seen as highly ready to adopt AI in its economy, as per the Government AI Readiness Index by Oxford Insights. The Concept for the Development of Artificial Intelligence, initiated by President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, is being implemented to further enhance this readiness.
A large language model (LLM) is a type of artificial intelligence (AI) program that can recognize and generate text, among other tasks. LLMs are trained on huge sets of data — hence the name “large.” LLMs are built on machine learning: specifically, a type of neural network called a transformer model.
