The Bulgarian Institute for Computer Science, AI and Technology (INSAIT) introduced BgGPT, a Bulgarian AI tool designed to serve Bulgarian state institutions, businesses and the general public, on January 15.

BgGPT is the first Bulgarian-language open-source AI model of the latest generation and was introduced at an event attended by Prime Minister Nikolai Denkov. With the launch, Bulgaria becomes one of the few countries worldwide with its own GPT system, trained in its own language. 

“Unlike other GPT platforms, BgGPT is not owned by a corporation and can be freely used by public and private organisations. It is developed completely by INSAIT,” the institute said in a statement on Facebook.

BgGPT, trained on over 3bn sentences and comprising 7bn parameters, should be fully accessible to the public on March 3.

Denkov said during the presentation that AI adoption is important for economic competitiveness, highlighting Bulgaria's commitment to AI development evident in the 2024 budget's support for an AI-based computing centre.

BgGPT is developed on the basis of GPT technology but is developed by the Bulgarian institute.

“I do not know whether you understand how important is the creation of our AI. Bulgaria becomes one of the few countries that has its own system, trained in its own language, designed for use by everyone. Literally everyone can use it. Both students and companies that can develop applications and instutitons to make analyses, reports and forecasts,” Lubomir Alamanov, a prominent communications expert, wrote on Facebook.

“One more important thing. BgGPT will be completely free of charge. For everyone. No one will pay for accounts, registrations or whatever. This means that everyone can use the full potential [of BgGPT]. But it also means that any company can develop applications based on this generative AI,” he added.

INSAIT's BgGPT aims to be an independent and competitive AI model, which should secure technological leadership to Bulgaria, according to INSAIT. The organisation demonstrated the model's capabilities, showing its ability to answer questions, solve problems, and compose essays on AI applications. The model's continuous improvement aims to make it a leading Bulgarian-language AI resource.

The BgGPT can be downloaded by any institution on its own closed servers and used without exporting data to external servers.

In December, Amazon Web Services donated $1mn to INSAIT to launch a professorship in automated reasoning. The $1mn donation will be used to bootstrap the area of automated reasoning by providing wages to professors and fellowships for incoming students (doctoral, masters, and undergraduate) working in the space.