Dubai, Amsterdam and Astana, 11 December 2024: VEON Ltd. (Nasdaq: VEON), a global digital operator, is pleased to note the launch of an open-source Kazakh-language large language model (Kaz-LLM), developed by a consortium coordinated by the Ministry of Digital, Innovations, and Aerospace Industry of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The development of Kaz-LLM was led by the Institute of Smart Systems and Artificial Intelligence at the Nazarbayev University (ISSAI NU) of Kazakhstan, in partnership with VEON’s QazCode, Beeline Kazakhstan and the Astana Hub.

With over 150 billion tokens collected, curated, synthesized and translated, the Kaz-LLM is capable of interacting in Kazakh language as well as in Turkish, English and Russian. With an 8 billion and a 70 billion parameter versions, the Kaz-LLM, developed in Kazakhstan, will help accelerate the creation and adoption of AI-powered products and services in the country. The model has been published on the Hugging Face platform for developers, ahead of its full launch.

The initiative, in which VEON’s QazCode is the only private sector partner, aligns closely with VEON’s mission to provide speakers of low-resource languages with augmented intelligence tools to enhance their daily lives, starting with Kazakhstan, VEON’s most advanced market in terms of augmented intelligence capabilities.

“The launch of the open-source Kaz-LLM represents a pivotal step forward in the development of Kazakhstan’s AI ecosystem. This initiative reflects our unwavering commitment to fostering innovation and advancing scientific endeavors that drive technological progress. I am confident that this groundbreaking model will help bridge the digital divide, bringing accessible and inclusive digital services to every Kazakhstani, regardless of their native language,” said Zhaslan Madiyev, Minister of Digital, Innovations & Aerospace of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

“AI, augmented Intelligence, has immense potential to amplify and augment human skills and capabilities; empowering doctors to deliver better care, teachers to inspire deeper learning, farmers to optimize yields, and students to excel. Yet, AI has a bias towards high-resource languages with greater digital representation. Operating in markets where national languages are not rich in digital research libraries, VEON is uniquely positioned to bridge this linguistic gap, ensuring that the half a billion people in our markets enjoy equal opportunities in the digital age. I warmly congratulate the Republic of Kazakhstan on the launch of Kaz-LLM. It is a privilege to have contributed to this landmark achievement through Beeline Kazakhstan and QazCode. We look forward to sharing these learnings globally and advancing inclusivity in AI,” said Kaan Terzioglu, CEO of VEON Group.

"We are delighted to have partnered with Kazakhstan’s leading research institutions for the development of Kaz-LLM. Our data science professionals and developers have brought in all the experience of Beeline Kazakhstan and QazCode in developing AI-based products into this joint national project. This major undertaking will benefit the entire digital ecosystem of Kazakhstan, ensuring that the country is among the leaders of augmented intelligence. It will also be a first for us at VEON Group, in line with our focus on addressing the AI language gap for the benefit of billions of speakers of low-resource languages,” said Alexey Sharavar, CEO of QazCode.

Beeline Kazakhstan and QazCode have already launched several AI products developed in-house, including the open-source LLM Kaz-RoBERTA-conversational model, which was the first Kazakh-language AI model with 2 billion parameters. Kaz-RoBERTA-conversational is currently used for customer service interactions on Beeline Kazakhstan’s digital platforms and is an open-source model that has been downloaded over three thousand times on the Hugging Face platform.

Beeline Kazakhstan and QazCode are also actively involved in contributing to international know-how on LLM development for low-resource languages. QazCode cooperates with the GSMA Foundry and the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, which has developed an LLM for the Catalan language, for sharing of expertise on LLM development.

About ISSAI 
Institute of Smart Systems and Artificial Intelligence (ISSAI) was founded in September 2019 to serve as the driver of research and innovation in the digital sphere of Kazakhstan with the focus on AI research. ISSAI provides an agile framework for research, innovation and collaboration with national and international partners in education, industry and government and contributes to the digital ecosystem of Kazakhstan in the advancement of national development goals.

About Beeline Kazakhstan and QazCode
Beeline Kazakhstan serves 11 million customers with mobile connectivity and two million with fixed internet services. Since 2018, the company has been executing its digital operator strategy. Over the past five years, leveraging its expertise in digital solution development, Beeline has created an ecosystem of 60 internal and external products, and serves a total monthly active user base of 11.6 million with its digital products as of June 2024. Beeline Kazakhstan is majority-owned by VEON.

QazCode, the software development company of Beeline Kazakhstan, is one of the largest companies in Kazakhstan with a team of 700 people including 350 developers. QazCode creates solutions such as telecoms process automation, gamification, entertainment and IT productivity using an artificial intelligence approach.

About VEON
VEON is a Nasdaq-listed digital operator that provides converged connectivity and digital services to nearly 160 million customers. Operating across six countries that are home to more than 7% of the world’s population, VEON is transforming lives through technology-driven services that empower individuals and drive economic growth. For more information visit: www.veon.com.

Disclaimer
This 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. Forward-looking statements are not historical facts, and include statements relating to, among other things, VEON’s strategy regarding development of AI products and capabilities. Forward-looking statements are inherently subject to risks and uncertainties, many of which VEON cannot predict with accuracy and some of which VEON might not even anticipate. The forward-looking statements contained in this release speak only as of the date of this release. VEON does not undertake to publicly update, except as required by U.S. federal securities laws, any forward-looking statement to reflect events or circumstances after such dates or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. There can be no assurance that the initiatives referred to above will be successful.

Contact Information 

Hande Asik 
Group Director of Communications 
pr@veon.com