News

A state-of-the-art open-source model from the GOAT AI research team

Last night, we released our first LLaMA-2 fine-tune, which achieved state-of-the-art results on the MMLU and BigBench Hard benchmarks. The model is open source and can be downloaded—and liked—directly from Hugging Face at the link below.

Link

This is an open version of an AI assistant similar to ChatGPT. It can be fine-tuned or run locally for research purposes. A demo is also available at the following link.

A few important details:

• Context length: 4096
• Model size: 7B parameters
• Dataset size: 72,000 dialogues

What makes our work unique? We focused on careful data cleaning, an essential part of a scientific approach to data analysis. Rather than cleaning the data in a single pass, we kept improving the process iteratively.

One key step toward better results was removing standard responses from larger AI models, such as “Sorry, as an AI assistant I cannot...”, from the dataset. After that, our model achieved the best results among all available 7-billion-parameter models.

The development team includes members of DSML KZ:

• Yerzat Dulat @rlprompt
• Aibek Bekbayev @qaszjo
• Sungbae Chun @Sungbae_Chun
• Jimmy Yamazaki @myxik

More technical details are available in the blog post about the model's release.

Arbuz.kz has launched Arbuz Chef, a ChatGPT-based bot that recommends dishes and recipes. Each recipe comes with a set of products that can be added to the cart. For now, the feature is available through the Friends loyalty program on iOS and the web.

Project initiator Alibek Utyubayev, Analytics Lead at Arbuz.kz, shared these insights:

• The push that dispelled doubts about creating Arbuz Chef came from Mr. Aimoldin: “Our competitors in the UAE got ahead of us and launched a recipe bot—why don't you become the first to do it in Kazakhstan?”
• Technically, it is a wrapper around the OpenAI API. From a business perspective, it is a way to launch in weeks a product that would otherwise have taken months and dedicated ML teams to build.
• The team started with a prompt for similar assistants that had leaked on Twitter and adapted it to their needs.
• Examples are useful when you want ChatGPT to follow specific formatting instructions more reliably. Do not just describe the output—provide an example of the required format.
• We took care of analytics from the start: we store user requests, added events for products being placed in the cart, and more.
• We hope the bot helps users answer “What should I cook today?” while considering individual needs that cannot be encoded with if-else logic—for example, a light meal on a hot day or an interesting menu spanning different world cuisines. In essence, this is not just a chatbot, but a new way to interact with Arbuz.kz's wide assortment.

Admission to NU is not based on UNT results. Applicants must take the international SAT or the university's NUET exam and submit an IELTS overall score of at least 6.5, with a minimum of 6.0 in each section.

We selected two programs at NU:

• Computer Science

Average applicant: IELTS 7.3; SAT Reasoning 1443. The program places greater emphasis on computer science fundamentals and partly covers data science. Core courses: Programming for Scientists and Engineers; Performance and Data Structures; Discrete Mathematics; Calculus I–II; Linear Algebra with Applications; Probability; Computer Systems and Organization; Programming Languages; Algorithms; Artificial Intelligence; Database Systems; Software Engineering.

• Mathematics

Average applicant: IELTS 7.2; SAT Reasoning 1395. The program focuses on mathematical foundations and proofs of theories underlying data science. Core courses and electives: Discrete Mathematics; Calculus I–II; Linear Algebra with Applications; Probability; Time Series Analysis; Statistical Programming; Statistical Learning (Master's); Regression Analysis; Nonlinear Optimization; Mathematical Statistics; Numerical Methods with Applications; Advanced Linear Algebra; Stochastic Processes; Stochastic Calculus; Advanced Linear Algebra.

Alongside their core subjects, students can take electives from different departments—including Computer Science, Political Science, Economics, and Nursing—regardless of their major.

Tuition information: Most students study on grants, but paid study is also available at NU. Bachelor's programs cost approximately 9,039,000 tenge, or $23,000, per year.

Great news from Kazakhstani startup Cerebra. The company, which develops AI for neuroradiology and provides automated diagnosis of ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke, was invited to join MedTech Innovator, the largest international medical-technology accelerator.

MedTech Innovator is more than a leading medtech startup accelerator: it aims to improve patients' quality of life by supporting and developing companies that are transforming healthcare. The accelerator's portfolio already includes 509 graduates, more than 200 FDA approvals and clearances, and approximately $6.8 billion in project funding.

Through the accelerator, Cerebra received mentorship from Zimmer Biomet, a global medical-equipment company with more than a century of history.

Cerebra founder Doszhan Zhusupov nevertheless emphasizes the need for greater support at home. We hope the company's future success becomes an important example for Kazakhstan's IT community and encourages stronger government involvement in supporting innovative projects.