Chula embraces AI future with ChulaGENIE, its own gen-AI platform

 

Chulalongkorn University (Chula), Thailand’s premier institution of higher learning, has partnered with Google Cloud to launch ChulaGENIE, a groundbreaking generative AI (gen AI) platform designed to empower the entire Chula community. 

 

 

This initiative marks a significant step towards making advanced AI capabilities accessible and beneficial to students, faculty, and staff. 

 

 

During a joint press conference on Thursday, Professor Wilert Puriwat, president of Chulalongkorn University, stated that ChulaGENIE aims to revolutionise higher education in Thailand by delivering advanced, secure, and accessible AI capabilities to the entire academic community.

 

 

"If successful, we will develop the system, expand the ecosystem to include our partners, and ultimately make it available to the public," he noted. 

 

 

The project, developed in partnership with Google Cloud, represents a significant leap forward in educational technology, offering staff and faculty members access from January 2025, with full student rollout planned for March 2025.

 

ChulaGENIE, which stands for “Chula's Generative AI Environment for Nurturing Intelligence and Education”, will initially provide access to Google's Gemini models, with plans to expand to enterprise versions of Anthropic's Claude and Meta's Llama models.

 

 

The platform's multimodal capabilities are particularly noteworthy. Users can upload complex documents up to 1.4 million words, including PDFs with tables and images, enabling sophisticated research and content generation across multiple languages.

 

Wilert emphasised the strategic importance of the initiative: "For Chula to realise 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."

 

 

He highlighted the platform's rapid development, noting that ChulaGENIE was built in under three months, making Chula the first Thai university to offer such a customisable, responsible, and scalable generative AI application.

 

 

The university plans to introduce custom AI agents with specialised capabilities, including:
▪︎ Research assistants for niche academic fields
▪︎ Academic advisory systems
▪︎ Administrative support mechanisms

 

 

Meanwhile, the Chula president said they have prioritised safety and privacy, implementing Google Cloud's Vertex AI safety filters and a robust governance framework. The platform ensures user data privacy through enterprise-grade encryption and strict access controls.

 

 

Complementing the technological innovation, Chula has already enrolled over 800 staff, faculty and students in the Google AI Essentials course, equipping them with critical AI skills, the university president said.

 

 

Annop Siritikul, Google Cloud's country director for Thailand, underscored the broader implications: "Our Vertex AI platform empowers organisations like Chula to operationalise responsible AI through features like grounding, model evaluation services, and tools for meeting stringent standards around data governance, privacy, and intellectual property protection."

 

 

He noted that 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. 

 

 

The move, 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.

 

 

The collaboration aims to develop an open-sourced, domain-specific Thai large language model for higher education, potentially transforming personalised learning and curriculum development.

 

ChulaGENIE represents more than a technological advancement — it's a strategic investment in Thailand's educational and technological future, promising to enhance research capabilities, student support, and institutional efficiency towards a future driven by innovation and technological advancement, Wilert said. This initiative has the potential to transform higher education in Thailand and contribute to the country’s overall economic and social development, he added.

 

 

"Artificial Intelligence is an important tool for enhancing human intelligence. Our priority is to create user-friendly AI tools while also developing our people’s skills to use AI effectively and wisely," Wilert said.