05-01-2025 
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A Hong Kong university has become the first in the city-state to launch a domestic large language model (LLM) known as HKGAI V1.
The new model was developed by researchers at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) ‘s Generative AI Research and Development Center. It will be available to the institution’s staff and students at no cost.
The project was funded by the Hong Kong government’s InnoHK initiative, which funds research and development of emerging technology that makes an impact in the city. While it’s based on China’s breakout AI star DeepSeek, the new model is tailored to the city’s cultural nuances and supports English, Cantonese and Putonghua, the three most used languages.
“The rise of AI has not only enhanced the efficiency and effectiveness of teaching and learning but has also made education more inclusive and personalized,” commented Guo Yike, the university’s deputy vice-chancellor.
“The incorporation of HKGAI V1, a locally developed generative AI model, will provide new learning and teaching resources that resonate with the unique culture of Hong Kong’s local context. We believe this will better meet the needs of our faculty and students as they explore innovative pedagogical approaches and engage in collaborative research.”
The new chatbot has been customized for academic use. Among its top uses will be facilitating classroom discussions, assisting students with deep reasoning and offering collaborative tools. It will generate prompts that foster better interactions in class, summarize key points for the students and assist in problem-solving and academic writing.
The university will also train faculty members to improve their understanding of the new tool and empower them to use it in their daily tasks. HKUST has fully embraced AI: its GenAI Platform hosts some of the leading global AI tools, from ChatGPT and DALL-E to DeepSeek-R1 and Llama 3.1. HKGAI V1 will be the first local model on the platform.
The launch of the new language model cements HKUST’s position as one of the top AI centers in Hong Kong. The university announced a new partnership with China Telecom two weeks ago to establish an AI and quantum innovation lab. Two months earlier, it announced a similar partnership with Microsoft Research Asia (NASDAQ: MSFT).
Beyond the classroom, HKGAI V1 is a major leap for Hong Kong in the AI sector, currently dominated by Chinese and American firms. While these firms are miles ahead in their tech, they lack the cultural and linguistic nuance that local solutions offer, as the data they are trained on is largely from their own countries.
More countries are waking up to the need for localized AI solutions. Across Southeast Asia, several local LLMs have sprung up in the past two years to cater to the vast diversity of the region, where over 1,200 languages are spoken. In the Middle East, countries like the UAE and Saudi Arabia are also pioneering local models.Kazakhstan to train 1 million citizens in AI
Elsewhere, Kazakhstan is seeking to train one million citizens in AI over the next year to evolve from a net consumer to a creator.
The Kazakh government aims to train 500,000 school children, 300,000 students, nearly 90,000 civil servants, 80,000 businesspeople and thousands of other citizens, reports the Astana Times.
Astana Hub, the largest technopark for tech startups in Central Asia, is spearheading the initiative. Managing Director Daniya Akhmetova told the media the government believes the initiative can cement Kazakhstan’s position as the region’s AI hotspot.
“This is a strategic initiative of the Kazakh government. The goal is to shape a generation ready to create and use technologies, not just consume them,” she stated.
The training initiative comes amid a concerted push by the government to promote AI research and development in Kazakhstan. A week ago, the Ministry of Digital Development announced that the country intends to launch a national AI strategy later this year. The strategy will be based on three pillars: infrastructure development, institutional framework and human capital, reported the Astana Times.
Kazakhstan’s AI development is being led by the AI and Innovation Development Committee, which was formed last year. One of its key mandates is ensuring AI independence by promoting the development of local LLMs.
Last year, the country launched the first LLM trained in the Kazakh language. The model, made available to the public, was trained on 148 billion tokens.
“The next direction is the National AI Platform. This platform has been put into operation, providing access to data, computing resources, and ready-made models. We have recently trained nearly 2,000 civil servants and quasi-public sector employees,” commented Gizzat Baitursynov, who chairs the committee.
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