KI:connect

The service is based on a North Rhine-Westphalia-wide project called KI:connect.nrw, which was developed at RWTH Aachen University. It provides members of the university with access to various large language models (LLMs), i.e., all employees and students.

• OpenAI GPT 5 (commercial model, data processing also takes place in the U.S.)
• Mistral Small 4 119B (European Open Weights model, runs entirely on servers in North Rhine-Westphalia)
• OpenAI GPT OSS 120B (American Open Weights model, runs entirely on servers in North Rhine-Westphalia)

For users who wish to implement their own models, two embedding models are also available via API (Qwen3 Embedding 8B, E5 Mistral 7B Instruct).

Firstly, many of the most powerful versions of modern LLMs such as GPT 5 incur fees when used independently. Secondly, the service protects your personal information from the providers of the models, such as OpenAI. They only see pseudonymized users, which they cannot assign to a real person or, for example, an email address or IP address. This also makes it possible to use the service in a manner that complies with data protection regulations in a business context. When using the open source models from Open Source-KI.nrw, all inputs also remain in the corresponding data centers in North Rhine-Westphalia.

No, for data protection reasons, it is currently prohibited to enter personal data. In the future, we aim to offer models that allow the processing of personal data, but that is still a long way off.

The open source models can be used without restriction at launch. In the future, usage limits may be imposed on certain models, particularly high-performance commercial models that incur high costs.

1. Go to https://chat.kiconnect.nrw
2. Log in via university account.

Alternatively, you can also use the service via the API. You can find the settings under Username -> API...

1. Model selection. Clicking on this shows the available models, the location, and, if applicable, the usage limits.
2. Input. This is where you enter your prompts.
3. Output and chat history.
4. Attachment. Here you can upload an image or a PDF document, for example. Please ensure that no personal data is included.
5. New chat: Start a new chat.
6. History: Previous chats that you can access again.
7. User: Here you can also log out.
8. Help: Here you will find help and information such as the terms of use and the privacy policy.

Terms of use KI:connect (in German)

Privacy statement KI:connect (in German)