Kyivstar, Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine Select Google’s Gemma as Base Model for Training National LLM

KYIV, Ukraine, Dec. 01, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Kyivstar (Nasdaq: KYIV; KYIVW), Ukraine’s leading digital operator, and the WINWIN AI Center of Excellence under the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine have selected Google’s Gemma as the base model for training the large language model (LLM). Gemma, Google’s next-generation open AI model, has been proven effective in both international and domestic projects.

Kyivstar is the Ukrainian Government’s strategic partner and operational lead for developing the national LLM. The company invests heavily in technological innovation and digital services, including integrating AI solutions into its long-term technology transformation strategy. The Ukrainian LLM will serve as the foundation for building digital AI-powered public and business services, improving service quality and organizational efficiency.

The selected model will be adapted for the Ukrainian language, with plans to:

• Improve the Ukrainian tokenizer, which will enhance the model’s performance in Ukrainian, reduce errors in generating Ukrainian-language text, and optimize computational costs;
• further train the model on unique Ukrainian texts currently being collected by experts; and
• create benchmark tests to fine-tune the model for future applications.
  
  

“Choosing Gemma for the Ukrainian LLM gives us the best balance between performance and resource use, as well as high-quality training,” said Mykhailo Nestor, Kyivstar’s Director of Digital Product Development. “The model supports more than 140 languages, including Ukrainian, features a context window of up to 128,000 tokens, offers multimodal capabilities, and has a flexible architecture that can be adapted to different tasks.”

Key advantages of this model include:

• Optimal balance between performance and resources — Gemma delivers high quality with reasonable infrastructure requirements, making it one of the best open models in terms of its size-to-quality ratio.
• Multilingual support — the model already includes Ukrainian and can be easily adapted through further training.
• Multimodality — it can process and analyze not only text, but also images.
• Advanced tokenizer — the token volume allows precise and efficient text processing and additional training. Its long context window accommodates up to 128,000 tokens.

• Multiple model sizes — flexibility to select the model size depending on the application area.
• Proven success — Gemma has already demonstrated excellent results as a base model for MamayLM and Lapa LLM, the existing Ukrainian LLMs, as well as INSAIT BgGPT, a modern LLM for the Bulgarian language.

Danylo Tsvok, Chief AI Officer at the Ministry of Digital Transformation and CEO of the WINWIN AI Center of Excellence, stated, “We are building the Ukrainian LLM on a ready-made open-source model. The main task in development is to train it on our unique data further. When choosing a model, we focused on how well it already handles Ukrainian-language texts and how controllable it is during additional training. This will help minimize linguistic and ethical risks in our LLM.”

Krzysztof Kaziów, Director Customer Engineering CEE, Google Cloud, said, "We are honored that the Ministry of Digital Transformation and Kyivstar have selected Gemma as the foundation for the Ukrainian national LLM. This choice underscores Gemma's strategic value, offering an optimal balance between performance and resources alongside its strong multilingual support. Leveraging its proven success as the base for leading Ukrainian LLMs, we are committed to supporting this vital initiative to enhance digital experience in Ukraine."

About Kyivstar Group Ltd.

Kyivstar Group Ltd. (“Kyivstar”, the “Group”) is a Nasdaq-listed holding company that operates JSC Kyivstar, the country’s leading digital operator and the first Ukrainian company to have its shares traded on a U.S. stock exchange.

The Group’s companies provide a broad range of connectivity and digital services, including mobile and fixed-line voice and data, ride-hailing, e-health, digital TV, and enterprise solutions such as Big Data, cloud, and cybersecurity.

Together with VEON, Kyivstar intends to invest USD 1 billion in Ukraine between 2023-2027, through social investments in infrastructure and technological development, charitable donations and strategic acquisitions.

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Nasdaq tickers: KYIV; KYIVW

About JSC Kyivstar

JSC Kyivstar is Ukraine’s leading digital operator, serving more than 22.5 million mobile customers and over 1.2 million home internet fixed line customers as of September 30, 2025. The company provides services using a wide range of mobile and fixed technologies, including 4G, Big Data, cloud solutions, cybersecurity services, digital TV, and more. JSC Kyivstar is advancing new telecommunication technologies in Ukraine and together with VEON plans to invest USD 1 billion in this direction between 2023–2027.

The company contributes to overcoming the challenges of wartime and, over the past three years, has allocated more than UAH 3.4 billion to support the Defense Forces, its subscribers, and the implementation of social projects. Kyivstar has operated in Ukraine for 27 years and is recognized as the largest taxpayer in the digital communications market, a top employer, and a socially responsible company. 

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About Google Cloud

Google Cloud is the new way to the cloud, providing AI, infrastructure, developer, data, security, and collaboration tools built for today and tomorrow. Google Cloud offers a powerful, fully integrated and optimized AI stack with its own planet-scale infrastructure, custom-built chips, generative AI models and development platform, as well as AI-powered applications, to help organizations transform. Customers in more than 200 countries and territories turn to Google Cloud as their trusted technology partner.

About The Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine

The Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine is a key state body in Ukraine created in 2019 to lead the country’s digital revolution and build the most convenient state for citizens and businesses. In just six years, Ukraine has risen from 102nd to 5th place worldwide in the development of digital public services.

The Ministry’s flagship product is Diia, the groundbreaking “State in a Smartphone.” It is a state ecosystem designed as a one-stop shop where citizens can access a range of services. Diia includes a portal with 150+ public services and an app with 33 digital documents and 65+ services.

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Disclaimer

This press release contains “forward-looking statements,” as the phrase is defined in Section 27A of the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Such forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements relating to, among other things, Kyivstar’s LLM launch and development plans as well as Kyivstar Group’s ability to achieve anticipated results and business objectives. There are numerous risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and performance to differ materially from those expressed by such statements, including risks relating to Kyivstar’s LLM launch and development plans as well as Kyivstar Group’s ability to achieve anticipated results and business objectives, among others discussed in the section entitled “Risk Factors” included in the final prospectus filed by Kyivstar Group with the U.S. Securities and exchange Commission (“SEC”) on July 22, 2025, as amended and supplemented from time to time, and in any other subsequent filings with the SEC by Kyivstar Group.