UNN presents strategically important advanced R&D projects to Dmitry Chernyshenko

On 30 May, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Dmitry Chernyshenko and Governor of the Nizhny Novgorod region Gleb Nikitin met with the management and representatives of the leading research areas of Lobachevsky University. Among other guests of the University were Minister of Education of the Russian Federation Sergei Kravtsov, Deputy Minister of Higher Education and Science of the Russian Federation Airat Gatiyatov, and representatives of the government of the Nizhny Novgorod region.

Oleg Trofimov, Rector of Lobachevsky University, presented the main strategically important advanced R&D projects and trends of UNN activities.

"This is the first time in many years that a leader of such a high level has visited our university. We have a lot to tell and share. The research and development projects that we demonstrated to Dmitry Chernyshenko were of genuine interest to him. We are among the very few in Russia who produce high-purity substances, and our technologies related to artificial intelligence and memristors are indeed at the forefront of science. It is of particular importance that today mostly our young people - those who actively move science forward - communicated with Dmitry Chernyshenko. The Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation has supported our ideas. The Governor and the regional government also render us great support and it gives us confidence to move forward", noted Oleg Trofimov.

Pilot production of ultrapure materials for microelectronics is underway at Lobachevsky University. The logic of pilot production is to implement a full production cycle for high-purity substances.  The young project leader and his research team have a wide range of competencies, ensuring the completion of the entire work cycle.

"We proceeded from the principle that we should aim at products that are in critical demand on the market, which have a prospect of going into production within 1.5 years. The plan is to break even on all investments within 3 years,“ explained Andrey Vorotyntsev, senior researcher at the UNN Research Institute of Chemistry who heads the project ”Development of technologies for obtaining ultrapure substances for the needs of the microelectronics industry and small-scale chemistry" under the Priority-2030 programme.

Nikolai Zolokhykh,  Director of the Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence (RCAI), Director of the UNN Institute of Information Technology, Mathematics and Mechanics, and Mikhail Ivanchenko, Principal Researcher at the RCAI, Director of the UNN Ageing Biology Research Institute, demonstrated to Dmitry Chernyshenko the advanced developments of the RCAI in the field of health-saving technologies and increasing life expectancy: an ECG measurement gadget for home and outpatient clinics, where artificial intelligence is used to recognise heart abnormalities with 98% accuracy; a mobile application with a cognitive age calculator to determine the correlation between biological age and cognitive brain function; an AI application system with strong AI elements that is used to analyse big biomedical data for identifying early risks of developing chronic age-related diseases and reduced/impaired ability to work.

Professor Susanna Gordleeva, Director of the UNN Research Institute of Neurosciences, and Alexey Mikhaylov, Head of the Research Laboratory for Memristor Nanoelectronics, presented the project “Neuromorphic and Quantum Technologies of Artificial and Hybrid Intelligence”. The project is aimed to develop and introduce into the real sector of the economy new technologies of electronic components for neuroelectronics, as well as neuromorphic and quantum technologies based on these components.

Currently, the UNN team, in close cooperation with Rosatom divisions, has created prototypes of RRAM microchips using the novel technology. The new technology is being transferred to the production site of JV “Kvant”. Significant advantages of the new components and of the microchips developed have been demonstrated in the form of neuromorphic computing systems and neurohybrid technologies that allow integrating artificial electronic and living neural networks (brain models and the whole brain).

The possibility of controlling a physical device with the power of thought was demonstrated at Lobachevsky University using a simple wheeled robot as an example. According to Susanna Gordleeva, for the first time in Russia, a prototype of a fully domestic memristor-based neuroprocessor (with electronic components operating on new principles) is used for neural control. This processor recognises human thoughts registered through a brain-computer interface of the motor-imagination type.

Mikhail Bakunov, Head of the UNN Department of General Physics, presented the work of the research laboratory for the study of extreme light fields (ELSA Lab). The guests were also interested in the CyberKarate MVP project, which twice entered the top 50 technological entrepreneurship startups in Russia and also won the All-Russian contest “Student Sports: Innovation, Technology and Digital Transformation” in two categories at once.