Chulalongkorn University (Chula), Thailand’s higher education institution, and Google Cloud have on Thursday announced a partnership for generative artificial intelligence (gen AI) for higher education.
In a statement, the duo have announced the inauguration of ChulaGENIE, a continuous application delivery project that makes the world’s most advanced gen AI capabilities safely, securely, and freely available to Chula’s entire community.
ChulaGENIE, stands for ‘Chula’s Generative AI Environment for Nurturing Intelligence and Education’, will be initially available to Chula staff and faculty members in January 2025, with all students receiving access in March 2025.
Through its integration with Model Garden on Vertex AI, ChulaGENIE lets users discover and choose from a curated set of AI foundation models.
“For Chula to realize its vision of becoming Thailand’s premier AI university, we needed best-in-class capabilities to accelerate the development of trusted and sovereign AI that benefits society,
“Google Cloud’s Vertex AI provides all the capabilities we are looking for within a single platform,” said Professor Dr. Wilert Puriwat, President, Chulalongkorn University.
According to him, it offers rigorous safety, privacy, and security safeguards; flexibility of choice through Model Garden; and the ability to customize powerful foundation models for diverse needs and more accurate responses.
“This allowed us to build and unveil ChulaGENIE in under three months, making Chula the first university in Thailand to offer a gen AI application for higher education that is customizable by users, adheres to responsible AI principles, and serves the community at scale,” he added.
He also said in collaboration with Google Cloud, they plan to continuously enhance ChulaGENIE while enabling more homegrown, education-centric AI innovations to achieve maturity and adoption momentum.
According to the statement, Chula will soon introduce a new functionality within ChulaGENIE: members of the Chula community will be able to create custom AI agents specializing in a particular area to assist themselves, or others, with specific tasks.
Moving forward, Chula plans to expand its collaboration with Google Cloud to develop an open-sourced, domain-specific Thai large language model for higher education.
This model could be used to drive applications that adapt to individual students’ learning pace and style, providing customized exercises, explanations, and feedback.
It could also underpin applications that analyze existing curricula for gaps or areas for improvement, suggesting modifications based on the latest research and educational trends.
It is noted that Chula has been offering the Google AI Essentials course to its staff, faculty members, and students, at no cost, under Google’s Samart Skills program.
To date, more than 800 individuals at Chula have completed this course, earning a certificate from Google to validate their competency in using gen AI tools.
The university is concurrently adapting the Google AI Essentials curriculum into a simplified course for non-native English speakers.
This ensures that all Chula community members can learn to effectively use ChulaGENIE to boost productivity, solve real-world problems, and advance innovation in their fields.
“At Google Cloud, we believe that AI’s usefulness hinges on its precision and responsible implementation,
“Our Vertex AI platform empowers organizations like Chula to operationalize responsible AI through features like grounding, model evaluation services, and tools for meeting stringent standards around data governance, privacy, and intellectual property protection,” said Annop Siritikul, Country Director, Thailand, Google Cloud.
According to him, Chula’s rapid rollout of ChulaGENIE reinforces the value of a platform-first approach for strategic AI initiatives, enabling development, deployment, and management at scale.
“This, along with a new Thai large language model for higher education and Google’s AI skilling programs, will unlock new possibilities in research and academia, ultimately benefiting all of Thai society,” he added.