On September 24, 2026, researchers from the Institute of Smart Systems and Artificial Intelligence (ISSAI) at Nazarbayev University conducted a practical workshop for researchers of Al-Farabi Kazakh National University (KazNU).

The workshop focused on the evaluation and deployment of Qolda, AI models developed by ISSAI under the grant funded by the Science Committee of the Ministry of Higher Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan (program targeted funding BR24993001).

During the workshop, Akylbek Maxutov, Senior Data Scientist at ISSAI, explained how Qolda models are evaluated and benchmarked. He introduced researchers to the benchmarking process, including test suite collection and the creation of test suites for systematically evaluating AI models.

Galamaddin Askar, Researcher at ISSAI, shared practical insights into deploying Qolda models on edge devices, including personal laptops and smartphones. He demonstrated how AI models can run directly on users’ devices, highlighting the potential of edge AI for efficient and accessible deployment.

The workshop provided researchers with practical knowledge of the AI model lifecycle, from evaluation and benchmarking to deployment on edge devices, while showcasing the practical applications of Qolda and its potential for on-device AI.