{"slug": "ukraine-to-pick-ai-models-operated-without-provider-control-official-says", "title": "Ukraine to pick AI models operated without provider control, official says", "summary": "Ukraine will prioritize AI systems that can be self-hosted on its own servers to avoid dependence on providers who could restrict or cut access, a senior official said Tuesday. The policy, reinforced after the U.S. ordered Anthropic to cut model access, aims to ensure AI sovereignty for government, business, and military use. Ukraine currently uses Google's remote-only Gemini as an interim solution while developing its own model based on Google's open-source Gemma.", "body_md": "By Leo Marchandon and Gianluca Lo Nostro\n\nJuly 7 (Reuters) - Ukraine will favour AI systems it can run on its own servers, a senior ministry official said on Tuesday, as wartime Kyiv seeks to keep digital tools for government services, businesses and the military from depending on remote systems that providers can restrict or switch off.\n\nThe approach favours self-hosted, or \"on-premise,\" models that Ukraine can deploy on its own infrastructure, while limiting solutions that, by design, remain under the provider's control — a category that includes Anthropic and OpenAI's main models.\n\nThe policy was reinforced after the U.S. government ordered Anthropic to cut access to powerful models, echoing broader European sentiment, Roman Kyslyi, Chief AI Officer at Ukraine's Ministry of Digital Transformation, told Reuters.\n\n\"It confirms that AI sovereignty isn't just a defensive talking point, it's a necessity,\" he said.\n\nReuters reported on Tuesday that Chinese authorities are considering curbs on top AI models, which currently dominate the open-source market.\n\nKyslyi said the decisive criterion is not about where the model is from. \"If the vendor will provide it to run on our on-premise (infrastructure), there are no restrictions.\"\n\n\"The model is essentially a commodity,\" Kyslyi said, adding that Ukraine would work with any provider whose technology could be deployed under Ukrainian control.\n\nCurrently, Ukraine's AI assistant inside the Diia government app runs on Google's remote-only Gemini, accessed through servers within the European Union. Kyslyi said Google provided free tokens for it, meaning no budget spending.\n\nStill, Ukraine strips personal data before sending queries to Gemini because they \"don't control those models,\" he said, describing Gemini as an \"interim\" solution.\n\nUkraine is also developing its own model with Kyivstar based on Google's Gemma, its open variant, due to be released in autumn and intended for use across government services, private enterprises and the military.\n\nKyslyi said the ministry compared several open-source options before choosing Gemma, including Mistral models and OpenAI's GPT-OSS. Gemma and Mistral matched remote-only alternatives on many performance tests, he said.\n\n(Reporting by Leo Marchandon and Gianluca Lo Nostro in Gdansk, Editing by William Maclean)", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ukraine-to-pick-ai-models-operated-without-provider-control-official-says", "canonical_source": "https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/ukraine-pick-ai-models-operated-160455583.html", "published_at": "2026-07-07 16:04:55+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-07 16:32:47.618389+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-policy", "ai-safety", "ai-infrastructure", "large-language-models", "ai-ethics"], "entities": ["Ukraine", "Ministry of Digital Transformation", "Roman Kyslyi", "Anthropic", "OpenAI", "Google", "Gemini", "Gemma"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ukraine-to-pick-ai-models-operated-without-provider-control-official-says", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ukraine-to-pick-ai-models-operated-without-provider-control-official-says.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ukraine-to-pick-ai-models-operated-without-provider-control-official-says.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ukraine-to-pick-ai-models-operated-without-provider-control-official-says.jsonld"}}