A State in a Smartphone: Deputy Minister Oleksandr Bornyakov on How Ukraine Built Its Digital Governance Model
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"Ukraine is moving toward a model where the interaction between the state and a citizen takes just one message from request to result."
"Ukraine is moving toward a model where the interaction between the state and a citizen takes just one message from request to result."
"Ukraine is moving toward a model where the interaction between the state and a citizen takes just one message from request to result."
Ukraine is writing one of the world’s most compelling stories of digital transformation - a story where government works at the speed of technology. From launching Diia, the “state in a smartphone,” to advancing AI-driven public services and a national LLM, Ukraine is pushing the boundary for what digital governance can look like. In this Q&A, Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation, Oleksandr Bornyakov, reflects on how the country became a digital leader and what’s next for a state powered by AI and innovation.
How Ukraine Became a Leader in Digital Transformation
Q: Many countries are still debating digital identity. Ukraine gave digital documents the same legal force as physical ones. What were the turning points that made this possible, and how do you see digital IDs evolving globally?
Six years ago, Ukraine made a bold decision to embrace digital transformation - an idea championed by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy: to build a state in a smartphone - one without bureaucracy, queues, or paperwork. To make this vision real, the Ministry of Digital Transformation was established. In just five years, Ukraine has climbed from 102nd to 5th place globally in the digitalization of public services. Our goal remains unchanged: to build the most convenient and citizen-oriented state for people and businesses alike.
One of the key steps on this journey was the creation of Diia - a platform that allows citizens to access government services quickly and easily online. In just a few years, Diia has evolved from a few digital documents on a smartphone into a full-fledged ecosystem of public services. Today, it offers more than 200 services through the app and the portal, serving over 23 million Ukrainians who can now access what they need in a few clicks - no queues, no paper bureaucracy. We achieved these results under far from ideal conditions - first during the COVID-19 pandemic, and then amid Russia’s full-scale invasion. Yet despite every challenge, we continue to move forward.
At the heart of our progress lies a human-centered approach, embedded not only in our digital products but also in how we design state systems themselves. This philosophy has helped us earn public trust and create a model that other governments can adapt to their own realities. By making services simpler, transparent, and truly focused on people’s needs, we’ve built the trust of millions of Ukrainians who use Diia every day. The turning point came when Ukraine decided to treat digital technologies not as an add-on, but as a full-fledged alternative. Four years ago, we became the first country in the world to grant digital passports on a smartphone the same legal status as physical documents - a shift I believe is irreversible.
By the end of 2026, Ukrainians will be able to use their digital documents across the entire European Union, and Europeans will enjoy the same access in Ukraine. This became possible thanks to successful interoperability testing conducted by the Diia team and the Ministry of Digital Transformation, ensuring full compliance with EU eIDAS 2.0, the new European standard for secure digital identity and wallets.
Meet Diia.AI: The World’s First National AI Assistant
Q: What types of government services can Diia.AI already complete end-to-end? How do you imagine AI changing the very nature of governance in the coming decade?
Over the past six years, Ukraine has transformed itself into a Digital State. Now, we are entering the next phase - building an Agentic State: a government where AI works as a personal agent, proactively delivering personalized services to citizens. For us, AI is not about hype or buzzwords - it’s about solving real problems in public services and state processes.
Ukraine is moving toward a model where the interaction between the state and a citizen takes just one message - from request to result. AI agents will anticipate people’s needs, offer relevant services, and automatically complete the necessary steps on their behalf. Our goal is to transform Diia from a digital service into a full-fledged AI agent, available 24/7, without filling forms or extra paperwork - making access to public services as simple as ordering a taxi or food delivery.
We’ve already taken the first step by launching Diia.AI - a personal AI assistant on the Diia portal that both consults and provides services. Visually, it resembles ChatGPT or other AI chatbots we already use, but with one crucial difference: Diia.AI is the first national AI assistant in the world that doesn’t just advise - it delivers actual government services. For example, you can get an income statement just by asking for it in chat. It’s a new paradigm of interaction between citizens and the state. Our next goal is to bring Diia.AI into the mobile app and expand the number of AI-powered public services.
Ukraine is taking a long-term approach to AI development. We are not just building individual products - we are building an ecosystem. Our mission is to become one of the top three countries globally by 2030 in AI integration across the public sector. To achieve this, we are now developing a National AI Strategy, which will define how we integrate AI into key areas such as governance, defense, education, science, and agriculture.
At the core of this vision is building AI sovereignty. We have already started developing a national large language model (LLM) - our own foundation model that will power government, business, and citizen-facing applications independently. The Ukrainian-language model will be based on an open-source framework and fine-tuned on unique Ukrainian datasets - capturing our language, history, and cultural context. It will be trained on massive volumes of Ukrainian text: news, analytical materials, literature, educational content, and more. The process involves a broad coalition of partners - from government institutions and universities to libraries, cultural organizations, and media outlets. We plan to release the first version of the model by the end of 2025.
The second pillar of AI sovereignty is infrastructure. Soon, Ukraine will launch a powerful national platform called the AI Factory - designed to support the development of state and defense AI systems. With it, all data powering national AI services will be processed inside Ukraine, ensuring data sovereignty and stronger cybersecurity. The AI Factory will combine high-performance computing clusters, water-cooled servers, data storage systems, and software environments for model training and deployment. It will also include training programs for AI engineers who will develop and implement AI solutions for the public and defense sectors. As a result, Ukraine will gain full control over its data, enhance cyber resilience, and scale national AI solutions without relying on external providers.
We are also actively developing a regulatory framework for AI. As a candidate for EU membership, Ukraine is aligning its future legislation with the EU AI Act. We’ve adopted a bottom-up approach, outlined in our White Paper on AI Regulation. This model helps local companies prepare for international standards while maintaining a balance between innovation and human rights protection. The implementation will unfold in two phases: first, a 2–3 year period of self-regulation, during which businesses adapt, and we engage stakeholders in shaping the regulatory framework. The second phase will be the adoption of Ukraine’s own version of the AI Act, which will legally codify the developed principles. This phased approach allows us to prepare businesses for regulation without stifling innovation. In parallel, we are studying how Ukrainian companies adapt to European standards, and only then will we introduce additional legal requirements.
Big Vision for Blockchain in Governance
Q: Ukraine has tested blockchain for land registries, auctions, and other state functions. What do these experiments suggest about the real potential (and limits) of blockchain in government?
The potential of blockchain technology has always been clear to us. To explore how it can be applied effectively, Ukraine has already implemented several pilot projects, from maintaining the land cadastre and recording the results of public procurement auctions to other initiatives primarily focused on research and experimentation. These projects have shown us that full-scale implementation is not yet feasible, as blockchain is not suitable for all types of government projects. When it comes to centralized blockchain, its implementation is technically possible but extremely costly. As a result, in most cases, the technology proved unnecessary. At the same time, these experiments were valuable - they helped us better understand how blockchain works and identify the areas where its application is truly justified.
In the summer of 2022, Ukraine joined the European Blockchain Partnership as an observer. The long-term goal of this initiative is to create a pan-European blockchain infrastructure, integrating Ukraine into the EU’s digital economic space. For us, this is a unique opportunity to study Europe’s best practices in using blockchain for public administration - a technology that ensures data integrity and protection from unauthorized changes. Blockchain demonstrates its full potential when it serves as a common technological foundation for various elements of a country’s digital economy. That’s why we were particularly inspired when the National Bank of Ukraine introduced the concept of the e-hryvnia - a digital version of the national currency which could be issued by the central bank in the near future.
However, there are still major challenges related to data ownership and node governance, which significantly limit further development of blockchain-based solutions. In a decentralized system, it is often unclear who owns the data, who controls the nodes, and who is responsible in case of errors or misuse. This ambiguity creates legal and operational risks, especially for government projects where data integrity, sovereignty, and compliance with national legislation are critical. Until a clear legal and institutional framework is established to regulate data ownership, node management, and liability, blockchain will likely remain a promising but largely experimental technology within the public sector.
Defining the Digital State of 2030
Q: From e-Residency to agentive AI, Ukraine is often described as a testing ground for the future of digital governance. Looking ahead five to ten years, what does the idea of a “digital state” mean to you - and what will distinguish the leaders from the laggards?
Ukraine has truly become a test ground for digital governance, where bold ideas are tested in real-world conditions. Among all emerging innovations, I believe the agentive AI model will spread the fastest as it represents one of the most promising directions of digital evolution. Agentive AI is the next logical step in the evolution of digital public services. It meets the core demands of our time: speed, personalization, and minimal effort from the user. Instead of citizens searching for the right service, the system proactively offers it at the right moment. For example, reminding someone to renew their documents or automatically processing benefit payments. This fundamentally simplifies the interaction between the state and its citizens, making it more seamless, intuitive, and human-centric.
In January 2025, the Government approved the WINWIN Strategy for Digital and Innovation Development of Ukraine until 2030. The document envisions Ukraine as a nation of innovation and outlines the key directions, principles, goals, and tasks of state policy in digital innovation. One of its strategic priorities is to develop domestic infrastructure for research, innovation, and AI implementation. Of course, the path forward is not without challenges: limited funding for AI innovations, lack of infrastructure, brain drain, outdated educational programs, and intense global competition in the AI market. To overcome these barriers, we are focusing on capacity building, infrastructure development, government support, and effective regulation to stimulate growth in the AI sector.
International cooperation and promotion of Ukrainian AI solutions on the global stage are also key priorities. One of our major steps in this direction was launching the WINWIN AI Center of Excellence, an initiative under the Ministry of Digital Transformation focused on developing and integrating AI products for the public sector and defense. The Center operates as a project incubator, accepting proposals for improving public services, co-developing solutions with the private sector, testing them, and integrating successful cases into government systems. This year, we also launched an experimental AI & Blockchain Sandbox, a two-year program that allows Ukrainian startups to have their products evaluated by top experts. The Sandbox acts as a safe testing environment where companies can validate their technologies before going to market or being implemented in the public sector, saving resources and minimizing operational risks.
Looking ahead to the next five to ten years, the concept of a “digital state” will mean a government seamlessly integrated with technology, where citizens, businesses, and public institutions interact through efficient, transparent, and proactive digital systems. It’s a vision of a country where access to services, information, and decision-making is frictionless, secure, and deeply personalized.
Designing a Startup-Friendly Framework
Q: “You’ve said, ‘Ukrainian code is literally everywhere.’ Ukraine’s startup ecosystem is growing even under extraordinary pressure. What are the key conditions that allow innovation to flourish in such an environment, and how can government frameworks - from policy to legal infrastructure - nurture and sustain that entrepreneurial mindset?”
According to the latest industry research, Ukraine is currently home to over 2,100 active, verified IT companies and around 2,000 startups, together employing approximately 302,000 IT specialists. The IT sector ranks second in the country’s export structure. Ukraine’s startup ecosystem has also been gaining international recognition. In the Global Startup Ecosystem Index 2025 by StartupBlink, it ranked 42nd among the world’s top 100 startup ecosystems, climbing four positions compared to last year. Recently, Ukraine was ranked fourth in Europe for startup support by the European Startup Nations Alliance. Currently, there are about 30 startups per one million citizens, and the country aims to reach 500, which further strengthens Ukraine’s position as a major exporter of IT services.
Several initiatives have been key to developing Ukraine’s startup ecosystem. Diia.City offers the most advanced legal and tax framework in Europe for IT companies, providing not only favorable taxation but also flexible employment models for building transparent corporate structures, elements of English law to attract investment, and robust protection of intellectual property. Each month, around 200–300 new high-quality companies join the project, bringing the total number of resident companies to nearly 3,000, employing roughly 130,000 IT specialists. Another focus is supporting defense tech development. For this, we created the Brave1 cluster, which has become the single-entry point for defense technology developers and has significantly simplified bureaucratic procedures. Now, innovators can access comprehensive support from the initial idea to a market-ready product. More than $80 million has already been invested in Ukrainian defense tech projects, with over 290 investment partners engaged. The UK–Ukraine TechBridge initiative focuses on four areas: education, innovation, investment, and trade. Ukrainians benefit from free training provided by leading global companies, participate in workshops with British investors, and startups supported by the UK–Ukraine TechBridge Accelerator have already raised over $12 million. The program also opens access to new markets, enabling Ukrainian companies to travel to the UK for meetings with local businesses.
Together, these initiatives create the necessary conditions and legal foundations for the growth of Ukraine’s startup ecosystem, helping local companies scale globally and strengthening the country’s position as a competitive tech hub.
About Oleksandr
Oleksandr Bornyakov has been serving as Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation since 2019. He was one of the visionaries and architects behind the Diia.City and Brave1 projects and is now driving the development of Ukraine’s venture ecosystem through the Diia.City Invest initiative. Before entering public service, he built a successful career in the global tech industry, founding VertaMedia (later Adtelligent), one of North America’s fastest-growing ad tech companies recognized by Deloitte and Inc. 5000.
He holds a Master of Public Administration from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, an MBA in Economics from the University of New Brunswick, and a Master’s in Marketing from the National Aviation University in Kyiv.
Oleksandr is recognized among Ukraine’s Top 25 Trailblazing Business Leaders by KyivPost and frequently contributes to global conversations on digital policy, innovation, and the future of governance.
Ukraine is writing one of the world’s most compelling stories of digital transformation - a story where government works at the speed of technology. From launching Diia, the “state in a smartphone,” to advancing AI-driven public services and a national LLM, Ukraine is pushing the boundary for what digital governance can look like. In this Q&A, Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation, Oleksandr Bornyakov, reflects on how the country became a digital leader and what’s next for a state powered by AI and innovation.
How Ukraine Became a Leader in Digital Transformation
Q: Many countries are still debating digital identity. Ukraine gave digital documents the same legal force as physical ones. What were the turning points that made this possible, and how do you see digital IDs evolving globally?
Six years ago, Ukraine made a bold decision to embrace digital transformation - an idea championed by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy: to build a state in a smartphone - one without bureaucracy, queues, or paperwork. To make this vision real, the Ministry of Digital Transformation was established. In just five years, Ukraine has climbed from 102nd to 5th place globally in the digitalization of public services. Our goal remains unchanged: to build the most convenient and citizen-oriented state for people and businesses alike.
One of the key steps on this journey was the creation of Diia - a platform that allows citizens to access government services quickly and easily online. In just a few years, Diia has evolved from a few digital documents on a smartphone into a full-fledged ecosystem of public services. Today, it offers more than 200 services through the app and the portal, serving over 23 million Ukrainians who can now access what they need in a few clicks - no queues, no paper bureaucracy. We achieved these results under far from ideal conditions - first during the COVID-19 pandemic, and then amid Russia’s full-scale invasion. Yet despite every challenge, we continue to move forward.
At the heart of our progress lies a human-centered approach, embedded not only in our digital products but also in how we design state systems themselves. This philosophy has helped us earn public trust and create a model that other governments can adapt to their own realities. By making services simpler, transparent, and truly focused on people’s needs, we’ve built the trust of millions of Ukrainians who use Diia every day. The turning point came when Ukraine decided to treat digital technologies not as an add-on, but as a full-fledged alternative. Four years ago, we became the first country in the world to grant digital passports on a smartphone the same legal status as physical documents - a shift I believe is irreversible.
By the end of 2026, Ukrainians will be able to use their digital documents across the entire European Union, and Europeans will enjoy the same access in Ukraine. This became possible thanks to successful interoperability testing conducted by the Diia team and the Ministry of Digital Transformation, ensuring full compliance with EU eIDAS 2.0, the new European standard for secure digital identity and wallets.
Meet Diia.AI: The World’s First National AI Assistant
Q: What types of government services can Diia.AI already complete end-to-end? How do you imagine AI changing the very nature of governance in the coming decade?
Over the past six years, Ukraine has transformed itself into a Digital State. Now, we are entering the next phase - building an Agentic State: a government where AI works as a personal agent, proactively delivering personalized services to citizens. For us, AI is not about hype or buzzwords - it’s about solving real problems in public services and state processes.
Ukraine is moving toward a model where the interaction between the state and a citizen takes just one message - from request to result. AI agents will anticipate people’s needs, offer relevant services, and automatically complete the necessary steps on their behalf. Our goal is to transform Diia from a digital service into a full-fledged AI agent, available 24/7, without filling forms or extra paperwork - making access to public services as simple as ordering a taxi or food delivery.
We’ve already taken the first step by launching Diia.AI - a personal AI assistant on the Diia portal that both consults and provides services. Visually, it resembles ChatGPT or other AI chatbots we already use, but with one crucial difference: Diia.AI is the first national AI assistant in the world that doesn’t just advise - it delivers actual government services. For example, you can get an income statement just by asking for it in chat. It’s a new paradigm of interaction between citizens and the state. Our next goal is to bring Diia.AI into the mobile app and expand the number of AI-powered public services.
Ukraine is taking a long-term approach to AI development. We are not just building individual products - we are building an ecosystem. Our mission is to become one of the top three countries globally by 2030 in AI integration across the public sector. To achieve this, we are now developing a National AI Strategy, which will define how we integrate AI into key areas such as governance, defense, education, science, and agriculture.
At the core of this vision is building AI sovereignty. We have already started developing a national large language model (LLM) - our own foundation model that will power government, business, and citizen-facing applications independently. The Ukrainian-language model will be based on an open-source framework and fine-tuned on unique Ukrainian datasets - capturing our language, history, and cultural context. It will be trained on massive volumes of Ukrainian text: news, analytical materials, literature, educational content, and more. The process involves a broad coalition of partners - from government institutions and universities to libraries, cultural organizations, and media outlets. We plan to release the first version of the model by the end of 2025.
The second pillar of AI sovereignty is infrastructure. Soon, Ukraine will launch a powerful national platform called the AI Factory - designed to support the development of state and defense AI systems. With it, all data powering national AI services will be processed inside Ukraine, ensuring data sovereignty and stronger cybersecurity. The AI Factory will combine high-performance computing clusters, water-cooled servers, data storage systems, and software environments for model training and deployment. It will also include training programs for AI engineers who will develop and implement AI solutions for the public and defense sectors. As a result, Ukraine will gain full control over its data, enhance cyber resilience, and scale national AI solutions without relying on external providers.
We are also actively developing a regulatory framework for AI. As a candidate for EU membership, Ukraine is aligning its future legislation with the EU AI Act. We’ve adopted a bottom-up approach, outlined in our White Paper on AI Regulation. This model helps local companies prepare for international standards while maintaining a balance between innovation and human rights protection. The implementation will unfold in two phases: first, a 2–3 year period of self-regulation, during which businesses adapt, and we engage stakeholders in shaping the regulatory framework. The second phase will be the adoption of Ukraine’s own version of the AI Act, which will legally codify the developed principles. This phased approach allows us to prepare businesses for regulation without stifling innovation. In parallel, we are studying how Ukrainian companies adapt to European standards, and only then will we introduce additional legal requirements.
Big Vision for Blockchain in Governance
Q: Ukraine has tested blockchain for land registries, auctions, and other state functions. What do these experiments suggest about the real potential (and limits) of blockchain in government?
The potential of blockchain technology has always been clear to us. To explore how it can be applied effectively, Ukraine has already implemented several pilot projects, from maintaining the land cadastre and recording the results of public procurement auctions to other initiatives primarily focused on research and experimentation. These projects have shown us that full-scale implementation is not yet feasible, as blockchain is not suitable for all types of government projects. When it comes to centralized blockchain, its implementation is technically possible but extremely costly. As a result, in most cases, the technology proved unnecessary. At the same time, these experiments were valuable - they helped us better understand how blockchain works and identify the areas where its application is truly justified.
In the summer of 2022, Ukraine joined the European Blockchain Partnership as an observer. The long-term goal of this initiative is to create a pan-European blockchain infrastructure, integrating Ukraine into the EU’s digital economic space. For us, this is a unique opportunity to study Europe’s best practices in using blockchain for public administration - a technology that ensures data integrity and protection from unauthorized changes. Blockchain demonstrates its full potential when it serves as a common technological foundation for various elements of a country’s digital economy. That’s why we were particularly inspired when the National Bank of Ukraine introduced the concept of the e-hryvnia - a digital version of the national currency which could be issued by the central bank in the near future.
However, there are still major challenges related to data ownership and node governance, which significantly limit further development of blockchain-based solutions. In a decentralized system, it is often unclear who owns the data, who controls the nodes, and who is responsible in case of errors or misuse. This ambiguity creates legal and operational risks, especially for government projects where data integrity, sovereignty, and compliance with national legislation are critical. Until a clear legal and institutional framework is established to regulate data ownership, node management, and liability, blockchain will likely remain a promising but largely experimental technology within the public sector.
Defining the Digital State of 2030
Q: From e-Residency to agentive AI, Ukraine is often described as a testing ground for the future of digital governance. Looking ahead five to ten years, what does the idea of a “digital state” mean to you - and what will distinguish the leaders from the laggards?
Ukraine has truly become a test ground for digital governance, where bold ideas are tested in real-world conditions. Among all emerging innovations, I believe the agentive AI model will spread the fastest as it represents one of the most promising directions of digital evolution. Agentive AI is the next logical step in the evolution of digital public services. It meets the core demands of our time: speed, personalization, and minimal effort from the user. Instead of citizens searching for the right service, the system proactively offers it at the right moment. For example, reminding someone to renew their documents or automatically processing benefit payments. This fundamentally simplifies the interaction between the state and its citizens, making it more seamless, intuitive, and human-centric.
In January 2025, the Government approved the WINWIN Strategy for Digital and Innovation Development of Ukraine until 2030. The document envisions Ukraine as a nation of innovation and outlines the key directions, principles, goals, and tasks of state policy in digital innovation. One of its strategic priorities is to develop domestic infrastructure for research, innovation, and AI implementation. Of course, the path forward is not without challenges: limited funding for AI innovations, lack of infrastructure, brain drain, outdated educational programs, and intense global competition in the AI market. To overcome these barriers, we are focusing on capacity building, infrastructure development, government support, and effective regulation to stimulate growth in the AI sector.
International cooperation and promotion of Ukrainian AI solutions on the global stage are also key priorities. One of our major steps in this direction was launching the WINWIN AI Center of Excellence, an initiative under the Ministry of Digital Transformation focused on developing and integrating AI products for the public sector and defense. The Center operates as a project incubator, accepting proposals for improving public services, co-developing solutions with the private sector, testing them, and integrating successful cases into government systems. This year, we also launched an experimental AI & Blockchain Sandbox, a two-year program that allows Ukrainian startups to have their products evaluated by top experts. The Sandbox acts as a safe testing environment where companies can validate their technologies before going to market or being implemented in the public sector, saving resources and minimizing operational risks.
Looking ahead to the next five to ten years, the concept of a “digital state” will mean a government seamlessly integrated with technology, where citizens, businesses, and public institutions interact through efficient, transparent, and proactive digital systems. It’s a vision of a country where access to services, information, and decision-making is frictionless, secure, and deeply personalized.
Designing a Startup-Friendly Framework
Q: “You’ve said, ‘Ukrainian code is literally everywhere.’ Ukraine’s startup ecosystem is growing even under extraordinary pressure. What are the key conditions that allow innovation to flourish in such an environment, and how can government frameworks - from policy to legal infrastructure - nurture and sustain that entrepreneurial mindset?”
According to the latest industry research, Ukraine is currently home to over 2,100 active, verified IT companies and around 2,000 startups, together employing approximately 302,000 IT specialists. The IT sector ranks second in the country’s export structure. Ukraine’s startup ecosystem has also been gaining international recognition. In the Global Startup Ecosystem Index 2025 by StartupBlink, it ranked 42nd among the world’s top 100 startup ecosystems, climbing four positions compared to last year. Recently, Ukraine was ranked fourth in Europe for startup support by the European Startup Nations Alliance. Currently, there are about 30 startups per one million citizens, and the country aims to reach 500, which further strengthens Ukraine’s position as a major exporter of IT services.
Several initiatives have been key to developing Ukraine’s startup ecosystem. Diia.City offers the most advanced legal and tax framework in Europe for IT companies, providing not only favorable taxation but also flexible employment models for building transparent corporate structures, elements of English law to attract investment, and robust protection of intellectual property. Each month, around 200–300 new high-quality companies join the project, bringing the total number of resident companies to nearly 3,000, employing roughly 130,000 IT specialists. Another focus is supporting defense tech development. For this, we created the Brave1 cluster, which has become the single-entry point for defense technology developers and has significantly simplified bureaucratic procedures. Now, innovators can access comprehensive support from the initial idea to a market-ready product. More than $80 million has already been invested in Ukrainian defense tech projects, with over 290 investment partners engaged. The UK–Ukraine TechBridge initiative focuses on four areas: education, innovation, investment, and trade. Ukrainians benefit from free training provided by leading global companies, participate in workshops with British investors, and startups supported by the UK–Ukraine TechBridge Accelerator have already raised over $12 million. The program also opens access to new markets, enabling Ukrainian companies to travel to the UK for meetings with local businesses.
Together, these initiatives create the necessary conditions and legal foundations for the growth of Ukraine’s startup ecosystem, helping local companies scale globally and strengthening the country’s position as a competitive tech hub.
About Oleksandr
Oleksandr Bornyakov has been serving as Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation since 2019. He was one of the visionaries and architects behind the Diia.City and Brave1 projects and is now driving the development of Ukraine’s venture ecosystem through the Diia.City Invest initiative. Before entering public service, he built a successful career in the global tech industry, founding VertaMedia (later Adtelligent), one of North America’s fastest-growing ad tech companies recognized by Deloitte and Inc. 5000.
He holds a Master of Public Administration from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, an MBA in Economics from the University of New Brunswick, and a Master’s in Marketing from the National Aviation University in Kyiv.
Oleksandr is recognized among Ukraine’s Top 25 Trailblazing Business Leaders by KyivPost and frequently contributes to global conversations on digital policy, innovation, and the future of governance.
Ukraine is writing one of the world’s most compelling stories of digital transformation - a story where government works at the speed of technology. From launching Diia, the “state in a smartphone,” to advancing AI-driven public services and a national LLM, Ukraine is pushing the boundary for what digital governance can look like. In this Q&A, Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation, Oleksandr Bornyakov, reflects on how the country became a digital leader and what’s next for a state powered by AI and innovation.
How Ukraine Became a Leader in Digital Transformation
Q: Many countries are still debating digital identity. Ukraine gave digital documents the same legal force as physical ones. What were the turning points that made this possible, and how do you see digital IDs evolving globally?
Six years ago, Ukraine made a bold decision to embrace digital transformation - an idea championed by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy: to build a state in a smartphone - one without bureaucracy, queues, or paperwork. To make this vision real, the Ministry of Digital Transformation was established. In just five years, Ukraine has climbed from 102nd to 5th place globally in the digitalization of public services. Our goal remains unchanged: to build the most convenient and citizen-oriented state for people and businesses alike.
One of the key steps on this journey was the creation of Diia - a platform that allows citizens to access government services quickly and easily online. In just a few years, Diia has evolved from a few digital documents on a smartphone into a full-fledged ecosystem of public services. Today, it offers more than 200 services through the app and the portal, serving over 23 million Ukrainians who can now access what they need in a few clicks - no queues, no paper bureaucracy. We achieved these results under far from ideal conditions - first during the COVID-19 pandemic, and then amid Russia’s full-scale invasion. Yet despite every challenge, we continue to move forward.
At the heart of our progress lies a human-centered approach, embedded not only in our digital products but also in how we design state systems themselves. This philosophy has helped us earn public trust and create a model that other governments can adapt to their own realities. By making services simpler, transparent, and truly focused on people’s needs, we’ve built the trust of millions of Ukrainians who use Diia every day. The turning point came when Ukraine decided to treat digital technologies not as an add-on, but as a full-fledged alternative. Four years ago, we became the first country in the world to grant digital passports on a smartphone the same legal status as physical documents - a shift I believe is irreversible.
By the end of 2026, Ukrainians will be able to use their digital documents across the entire European Union, and Europeans will enjoy the same access in Ukraine. This became possible thanks to successful interoperability testing conducted by the Diia team and the Ministry of Digital Transformation, ensuring full compliance with EU eIDAS 2.0, the new European standard for secure digital identity and wallets.
Meet Diia.AI: The World’s First National AI Assistant
Q: What types of government services can Diia.AI already complete end-to-end? How do you imagine AI changing the very nature of governance in the coming decade?
Over the past six years, Ukraine has transformed itself into a Digital State. Now, we are entering the next phase - building an Agentic State: a government where AI works as a personal agent, proactively delivering personalized services to citizens. For us, AI is not about hype or buzzwords - it’s about solving real problems in public services and state processes.
Ukraine is moving toward a model where the interaction between the state and a citizen takes just one message - from request to result. AI agents will anticipate people’s needs, offer relevant services, and automatically complete the necessary steps on their behalf. Our goal is to transform Diia from a digital service into a full-fledged AI agent, available 24/7, without filling forms or extra paperwork - making access to public services as simple as ordering a taxi or food delivery.
We’ve already taken the first step by launching Diia.AI - a personal AI assistant on the Diia portal that both consults and provides services. Visually, it resembles ChatGPT or other AI chatbots we already use, but with one crucial difference: Diia.AI is the first national AI assistant in the world that doesn’t just advise - it delivers actual government services. For example, you can get an income statement just by asking for it in chat. It’s a new paradigm of interaction between citizens and the state. Our next goal is to bring Diia.AI into the mobile app and expand the number of AI-powered public services.
Ukraine is taking a long-term approach to AI development. We are not just building individual products - we are building an ecosystem. Our mission is to become one of the top three countries globally by 2030 in AI integration across the public sector. To achieve this, we are now developing a National AI Strategy, which will define how we integrate AI into key areas such as governance, defense, education, science, and agriculture.
At the core of this vision is building AI sovereignty. We have already started developing a national large language model (LLM) - our own foundation model that will power government, business, and citizen-facing applications independently. The Ukrainian-language model will be based on an open-source framework and fine-tuned on unique Ukrainian datasets - capturing our language, history, and cultural context. It will be trained on massive volumes of Ukrainian text: news, analytical materials, literature, educational content, and more. The process involves a broad coalition of partners - from government institutions and universities to libraries, cultural organizations, and media outlets. We plan to release the first version of the model by the end of 2025.
The second pillar of AI sovereignty is infrastructure. Soon, Ukraine will launch a powerful national platform called the AI Factory - designed to support the development of state and defense AI systems. With it, all data powering national AI services will be processed inside Ukraine, ensuring data sovereignty and stronger cybersecurity. The AI Factory will combine high-performance computing clusters, water-cooled servers, data storage systems, and software environments for model training and deployment. It will also include training programs for AI engineers who will develop and implement AI solutions for the public and defense sectors. As a result, Ukraine will gain full control over its data, enhance cyber resilience, and scale national AI solutions without relying on external providers.
We are also actively developing a regulatory framework for AI. As a candidate for EU membership, Ukraine is aligning its future legislation with the EU AI Act. We’ve adopted a bottom-up approach, outlined in our White Paper on AI Regulation. This model helps local companies prepare for international standards while maintaining a balance between innovation and human rights protection. The implementation will unfold in two phases: first, a 2–3 year period of self-regulation, during which businesses adapt, and we engage stakeholders in shaping the regulatory framework. The second phase will be the adoption of Ukraine’s own version of the AI Act, which will legally codify the developed principles. This phased approach allows us to prepare businesses for regulation without stifling innovation. In parallel, we are studying how Ukrainian companies adapt to European standards, and only then will we introduce additional legal requirements.
Big Vision for Blockchain in Governance
Q: Ukraine has tested blockchain for land registries, auctions, and other state functions. What do these experiments suggest about the real potential (and limits) of blockchain in government?
The potential of blockchain technology has always been clear to us. To explore how it can be applied effectively, Ukraine has already implemented several pilot projects, from maintaining the land cadastre and recording the results of public procurement auctions to other initiatives primarily focused on research and experimentation. These projects have shown us that full-scale implementation is not yet feasible, as blockchain is not suitable for all types of government projects. When it comes to centralized blockchain, its implementation is technically possible but extremely costly. As a result, in most cases, the technology proved unnecessary. At the same time, these experiments were valuable - they helped us better understand how blockchain works and identify the areas where its application is truly justified.
In the summer of 2022, Ukraine joined the European Blockchain Partnership as an observer. The long-term goal of this initiative is to create a pan-European blockchain infrastructure, integrating Ukraine into the EU’s digital economic space. For us, this is a unique opportunity to study Europe’s best practices in using blockchain for public administration - a technology that ensures data integrity and protection from unauthorized changes. Blockchain demonstrates its full potential when it serves as a common technological foundation for various elements of a country’s digital economy. That’s why we were particularly inspired when the National Bank of Ukraine introduced the concept of the e-hryvnia - a digital version of the national currency which could be issued by the central bank in the near future.
However, there are still major challenges related to data ownership and node governance, which significantly limit further development of blockchain-based solutions. In a decentralized system, it is often unclear who owns the data, who controls the nodes, and who is responsible in case of errors or misuse. This ambiguity creates legal and operational risks, especially for government projects where data integrity, sovereignty, and compliance with national legislation are critical. Until a clear legal and institutional framework is established to regulate data ownership, node management, and liability, blockchain will likely remain a promising but largely experimental technology within the public sector.
Defining the Digital State of 2030
Q: From e-Residency to agentive AI, Ukraine is often described as a testing ground for the future of digital governance. Looking ahead five to ten years, what does the idea of a “digital state” mean to you - and what will distinguish the leaders from the laggards?
Ukraine has truly become a test ground for digital governance, where bold ideas are tested in real-world conditions. Among all emerging innovations, I believe the agentive AI model will spread the fastest as it represents one of the most promising directions of digital evolution. Agentive AI is the next logical step in the evolution of digital public services. It meets the core demands of our time: speed, personalization, and minimal effort from the user. Instead of citizens searching for the right service, the system proactively offers it at the right moment. For example, reminding someone to renew their documents or automatically processing benefit payments. This fundamentally simplifies the interaction between the state and its citizens, making it more seamless, intuitive, and human-centric.
In January 2025, the Government approved the WINWIN Strategy for Digital and Innovation Development of Ukraine until 2030. The document envisions Ukraine as a nation of innovation and outlines the key directions, principles, goals, and tasks of state policy in digital innovation. One of its strategic priorities is to develop domestic infrastructure for research, innovation, and AI implementation. Of course, the path forward is not without challenges: limited funding for AI innovations, lack of infrastructure, brain drain, outdated educational programs, and intense global competition in the AI market. To overcome these barriers, we are focusing on capacity building, infrastructure development, government support, and effective regulation to stimulate growth in the AI sector.
International cooperation and promotion of Ukrainian AI solutions on the global stage are also key priorities. One of our major steps in this direction was launching the WINWIN AI Center of Excellence, an initiative under the Ministry of Digital Transformation focused on developing and integrating AI products for the public sector and defense. The Center operates as a project incubator, accepting proposals for improving public services, co-developing solutions with the private sector, testing them, and integrating successful cases into government systems. This year, we also launched an experimental AI & Blockchain Sandbox, a two-year program that allows Ukrainian startups to have their products evaluated by top experts. The Sandbox acts as a safe testing environment where companies can validate their technologies before going to market or being implemented in the public sector, saving resources and minimizing operational risks.
Looking ahead to the next five to ten years, the concept of a “digital state” will mean a government seamlessly integrated with technology, where citizens, businesses, and public institutions interact through efficient, transparent, and proactive digital systems. It’s a vision of a country where access to services, information, and decision-making is frictionless, secure, and deeply personalized.
Designing a Startup-Friendly Framework
Q: “You’ve said, ‘Ukrainian code is literally everywhere.’ Ukraine’s startup ecosystem is growing even under extraordinary pressure. What are the key conditions that allow innovation to flourish in such an environment, and how can government frameworks - from policy to legal infrastructure - nurture and sustain that entrepreneurial mindset?”
According to the latest industry research, Ukraine is currently home to over 2,100 active, verified IT companies and around 2,000 startups, together employing approximately 302,000 IT specialists. The IT sector ranks second in the country’s export structure. Ukraine’s startup ecosystem has also been gaining international recognition. In the Global Startup Ecosystem Index 2025 by StartupBlink, it ranked 42nd among the world’s top 100 startup ecosystems, climbing four positions compared to last year. Recently, Ukraine was ranked fourth in Europe for startup support by the European Startup Nations Alliance. Currently, there are about 30 startups per one million citizens, and the country aims to reach 500, which further strengthens Ukraine’s position as a major exporter of IT services.
Several initiatives have been key to developing Ukraine’s startup ecosystem. Diia.City offers the most advanced legal and tax framework in Europe for IT companies, providing not only favorable taxation but also flexible employment models for building transparent corporate structures, elements of English law to attract investment, and robust protection of intellectual property. Each month, around 200–300 new high-quality companies join the project, bringing the total number of resident companies to nearly 3,000, employing roughly 130,000 IT specialists. Another focus is supporting defense tech development. For this, we created the Brave1 cluster, which has become the single-entry point for defense technology developers and has significantly simplified bureaucratic procedures. Now, innovators can access comprehensive support from the initial idea to a market-ready product. More than $80 million has already been invested in Ukrainian defense tech projects, with over 290 investment partners engaged. The UK–Ukraine TechBridge initiative focuses on four areas: education, innovation, investment, and trade. Ukrainians benefit from free training provided by leading global companies, participate in workshops with British investors, and startups supported by the UK–Ukraine TechBridge Accelerator have already raised over $12 million. The program also opens access to new markets, enabling Ukrainian companies to travel to the UK for meetings with local businesses.
Together, these initiatives create the necessary conditions and legal foundations for the growth of Ukraine’s startup ecosystem, helping local companies scale globally and strengthening the country’s position as a competitive tech hub.
About Oleksandr
Oleksandr Bornyakov has been serving as Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation since 2019. He was one of the visionaries and architects behind the Diia.City and Brave1 projects and is now driving the development of Ukraine’s venture ecosystem through the Diia.City Invest initiative. Before entering public service, he built a successful career in the global tech industry, founding VertaMedia (later Adtelligent), one of North America’s fastest-growing ad tech companies recognized by Deloitte and Inc. 5000.
He holds a Master of Public Administration from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, an MBA in Economics from the University of New Brunswick, and a Master’s in Marketing from the National Aviation University in Kyiv.
Oleksandr is recognized among Ukraine’s Top 25 Trailblazing Business Leaders by KyivPost and frequently contributes to global conversations on digital policy, innovation, and the future of governance.
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Oleksandr Bornyakov has been serving as Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation since 2019. He was one of the visionaries and architects behind the Diia.City and Brave1 projects and is now driving the development of Ukraine’s venture ecosystem through the Diia.City Invest initiative.
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