Ukraine's government taps Nvidia for “sovereign AI infrastructure” support

The government of Ukraine is implementing a plan to create what it calls “sovereign artificial intelligence” in partnership with chipmaker Nvidia.

The collaboration will allow the authorities in Kyiv to develop a state-controlled artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure using hardware from the leading manufacturer of the necessary components.

Ukraine launches AI project with support from Nvidia

The joint initiative with Nvidia aims to build Ukraine’s sovereign artificial intelligence using Nvidia’s know-how, the country’s Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov unveiled.

“We are starting to work with Nvidia – the world leader in computing infrastructure for AI,” Fedorov announced this week.

On Monday, he took to Telegram to emphasize this is “a matter of national security and data protection,” elaborating further:

“Thanks to Nvidia’s expertise, Ukraine will gain access to the best technologies in the world to create a sustainable and independent AI infrastructure for the state and defense sectors.”

The initiative will focus on several key areas. Besides creating the national AI system based on Nvidia’s AI infrastructure, the partners will facilitate AI education to develop Ukrainian talent in the field as well.

Nvidia and Kyiv intend to implement joint research and development (R&D) projects, too, and ensure support for the war-torn nation’s startup ecosystem.

Also quoted by one of the leading Russian-language crypto news outlets, Forklog, the digital minister noted this isn’t Kyiv’s only collaboration with the GPU giant:

“We have already launched the AI Factory project, thanks to which a powerful state AI infrastructure from Nvidia will appear in Ukraine. Now we are starting a new joint initiative to build sovereign AI together.”

Ukraine is working to become an ‘AI agent state’

Mykhailo Fedorov pointed out that the first joint project with Nvidia is the creation of a Diia AI LLM (large language model), and explained:

“This is a sovereign language model trained on Ukrainian data, legislation, and public services. It will power all AI solutions in the Diia ecosystem, from the portal’s assistant to the future voice assistant in the application.”

Diia is the umbrella term encompassing a range of e-government services in Ukraine, including a mobile app and a web portal. The name is an acronym for “the state and me” in Ukrainian.

As part of this project, Ukraine will gain access to Nvidia technologies and expertise, which will help it train models faster, optimize costs, and create AI solutions, Fedorov remarked.

The collaboration with Nvidia is an important step on the path toward building “an agent-based state that is proactive and uses artificial intelligence for solutions that help people,” Ukraine’s minister of digital transformation also stressed in his Telegram post.

Ukraine claims to have launched the “world’s first state AI agent.” It was unveiled in September on the Diia portal. The bot is not just answering questions but also provides services in the chat as well.

Another Eastern European country with similar aspirations is Albania, which appointed an AI bot as a virtual member of its government the same month. Named Diella, its main task is to tackle corruption in public procurement.

In October, Prime Minister Edi Rama also announced that Diella clones will assist lawmakers from his Socialist Party’s majority in the Albanian parliament, as reported by Cryptopolitan.

Earlier this year, Ukraine’s digital ministry set up a sandbox for testing AI and blockchain technologies. The country’s crypto space is still expecting proper regulations. In September, Ukrainian deputies approved on first reading the long-awaited bill “On Virtual Assets.”

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