President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin urges Russia’s leading universities to train Artificial Intelligence specialists
The leading universities in Russia are to expand their degree programmes in Artificial Intelligence (AI). This task has been set by President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin to the top-ranked performers in the ranking conducted by AI Alliance Russia. St Petersburg University is among the ranking leaders.
President Vladimir Putin addressed the plenary session of the 8th International Conference "AI Journey 2023". This major online conference in the field of artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies has attracted over 100 million participants from 150 countries across the globe.
In his statement, Vladimir Putin said that a presidential executive order on a new version of Russia’s National AI Strategy will be signed and go into effect soon. There will be a number of significant changes to accommodate the rapid growth of AI technologies. The President of the Russian Federation stressed that we need to focus our efforts on expanding fundamental and applied research in generative artificial intelligence and large language models to meet the national strategic objectives.
In particular, President Vladimir Putin underlined that the universities that hold leading positions in the first Russia’s university ranking regarding the quality of education for AI professionals, with St Petersburg University being ranked among the top performers, are to expand the range of their academic programmes for AI scientists and developers. ‘I suggest that the leading universities in the AI Alliance Russia ranking should expand their master’s and doctoral programmes in the field of AI technologies by 1 September 2024. Additionally, the admission to bachelor’s programmes in the field of artificial intelligence at the expense of the federal budget is also to be increased,’ said Vladimir Putin.
The ranking of Russian universities in terms of the quality of education for AI specialists was presented at the AI Journey 2023 International Conference. The ranking list, prepared by the AI Alliance Russia together with the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation, includes 180 universities from 64 regions of the country.
St Petersburg University has been actively developing research in digital technologies and training professionals to address most pressing issues of the digital industry. To achieve these goals, the Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Data Science was established at St Petersburg University. The Centre focuses on the development and implementation of large-scale self-organising adaptive and distributed digital platforms for artificial intelligence of things (AIoT) and applications of this technology in the digital industry.
Also, the Research and Education Centre ‘Mathematical Robotics and Artificial Intelligence’ has been set up at St Petersburg University to bring together and combine the efforts of the University researchers in studying intelligent control, mathematical robotics, and educational robotics. One of the Centre’s current projects is developing a new method to help find people lost in the woods using drones.