Established at ITMO in 2018, the National Center for Cognitive Research is a competence center of the National Technological Initiative (NTI) in the end-to-end technology Machine Learning and Cognitive Technologies. 

The center aims to create a balanced domestic ecosystem for the development and implementation of ML and cognitive technologies intended as a framework for the organization of applied AI systems for the purpose of forming high-tech products and services for promising NTI markets within the digital economy paradigm. 

The National Center for Cognitive Research is first of all a consortium; it is an association of research centers, universities, and commercial organizations that develop ML and cognitive technologies – a set of methods and means of creating systems with a strong training function, which are capable of supporting human decision-making in intellectual and creative tasks at a qualitatively new level with applications in various fields under the conditions of uncertainty and incomplete information.

The supreme collegial body of the center is its supervisory board. 

The center develops:

• Industry-focused technologies and decision-making (decision support) systems aimed to reproduce human professional activities in an environment consisting of technical systems, AI, and natural intelligence objects;

• Subject-independent digital platforms for designing, developing, and training technologies and systems, with the flexibility to adapt them to industry needs.

The center’s mission is to achieve sustainable leadership on the domestic and international markets of industry-specific AI systems and technologies through creating a unique environment for ensuring the life cycle of promising products and services based on machine learning and related end-to-end technologies (big data, computer modeling, virtual reality, and robotics).

Tasks

• Generate knowledge in promising areas of ML and cognitive technologies to maintain global research standards and develop an advanced theoretical groundwork for producing new applied AI technologies;

• Conduct R&D projects to develop AI systems and solutions based on ML and cognitive technologies in different sectors of the national industry, business, social sphere, defense, and security;

• Form and develop an ecosystem of innovations and entrepreneurship in terms of applied AI based on ML and cognitive technologies, including the promotion of new products and services and design of AI  products and services, including for the international market;

• Ensure continuous training of highly-qualified specialists in the development and application of ML and cognitive technologies, including in  particular applied fields and for particular scientific and technological tasks; 

• Establish a national system of assessment of compliance of ML and cognitive technologies with the requirements that guarantee the performance quality of applied solutions and systems. 

The operator of the NTI Competence Centers support program is the NTI Foundation.

More information about the National Technological Initiative can be found on the website.