The new academic year is upon us! We hope you are excited to delve into new subjects, tackle exciting projects, and learn a bunch of cool facts. To help you along the way, here is a selection of AI services to help you revise, understand the material, build impressive visuals, and more.
ITMO University was selected by the Russian Ministry of Science and Higher Education to receive a subsidy of 180 million rubles to encourage domestic engineering production. The funding will be used to build a spectrophotometer – a device that measures the amount of light absorbed by a liquid sample to identify its composition and proportions. The technology will make it possible to determine substances present in a single drop of solution, verify the quality of medications, and analyze biological samples. The university will receive the allocated funding in 2026-2028.
Lasers, AI, and cyber-donuts: everything is next-gen in our latest summary of all the scientific goings-on at ITMO University. Plug in and see for yourself!
Researchers at ITMO’s Center for AI in Chemistry have developed dcBiLSTM‑AE, a neural network for analyzing peptides, short chains of amino acids, that is 1,000 times more compact than its counterparts. The model evaluates molecules based on their chemical properties and requires no large computer power and databases – yet, it is as accurate as protein language models. The technology can accelerate finding candidate peptides for new medications. The findings were recently published in the Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling.
A new academic year is just around the corner, which means it’s time to get your notebooks and planners ready. Looking for something more extra than the regular store finds? We’ve rounded up a few Russian brands making uniquely beautiful and functional things straight from our wishlists.
ITMO researchers have developed resonator microparticles that emit light and amplify it by hundreds of times. Thanks to this property, they can be used in producing light-emitting medical sensors for the detection of marker molecules of various diseases in blood samples. Moreover, such structures can be used as miniature anti-fraud markings, including in microelectronics. The results of the Russian Science Foundation-supported study were published in Optics and Laser Technology.
Meet Bahadir Artvin, a student from Ankara, Türkiye, who is pursuing his Bachelor’s studies in system and applied software at ITMO. In this interview, Bahadir shares his journey as an international student in Russia, discussing everything from cultural surprises and Russian cuisine to his passion for software development. He also offers honest advice for fellow Turkish students considering the leap to ITMO. Read on to discover his story.
Is summer still here? Make the last weeks of the summer break feel longer with our fun list of things to do. In our sights for this week are freshly-opened expos, budget-friendly day trips, and some stamp hunting.
Summer in St. Petersburg might be winding down, but there’s never a bad time to cool off with a chill drink. Luckily, there are plenty of those to enjoy in the city: from classic brands and old-school concoctions to new-fangled drinks for the hip soda connoisseur.
ITMO University and Yandex Education are setting off on a big journey with Kiberpyshechnaya (lit. “cyber donut shop”)! The partners’ food truck will cover over 4,000 km and visit five cities, bringing a mini-science festival to each of them. Visitors will get to taste the legendary St. Petersburg pyshki, visit open lectures, play games, learn about opportunities for applicants, and even get the chance to win a PlayStation. Read on to learn more.
Researchers from ITMO University, Skoltech, and HSE University have developed the first electrically powered perovskite laser that requires no additional external lighting from another laser or a powerful lamp; instead, it can be directly connected to a power source like a regular LED. Since perovskite crystals can be easily grown from solutions, the technology is more cost-efficient than existing alternatives – and can potentially be used in optical chips, sensors, and quantum devices. The findings of the corresponding study were published in Nature.
The admissions period for tuition-free positions in Bachelor’s programs at Russian universities has ended. ITMO has already published the first orders of admission. In 2026, the university received over 32,000 applications, which is a 150%increase from last year’s numbers. ITMO also welcomed a record number of contest winners in St. Petersburg.
Students from ITMO University took three gold and two silver prizes at the 33rd International Math Competition for University Students (IMC), one of the most prestigious math competitions in the world. In the team ranking, ITMO University is 11th out of 136 universities from 47 countries.
Russian universities have now closed the round of admissions for top-priority applicants. 875 winners and runners-up of school student contests have chosen ITMO for their studies and enrolled at the university without exams. This is one of the best results in the country, the highest in St. Petesburg, and a new record for ITMO.
ITMO took fifth place in the ranking of Russian universities by the salary of their graduates working in chemistry and pharmaceutics. According to the survey by SuperJob, the median monthly salary of young specialists who graduated from ITMO in 2020-2025 is 170,000 rubles.
Students of ITMO University’s youth lab Digital Public Health Technologies have created MAS-EHR, a multiagent platform for processing of medical documents. The software can automatically analyze multiformat data – be it texts, scans, or tables – and transform it into a single structured medical record. MAS-EHR extracts diagnoses and test results, converts them into a shared format, detects and deletes personal data, and connects separate facts to demonstrate how different records about the same patient correspond to each other.
Mustafa Haider, a physicist from Pakistan, has overcome his share of hardships throughout his career. First when he managed to enroll at a prestigious university thanks to new admission rules, and then when the world closed down for COVID-19 and his international postdoc turned into isolation with uncertain prospects. Eventually, he found himself in the industry, where research ideas became commercial products. Since then, he has worked in China, where a chance encounter with a Russian professor brought him to St. Petersburg and, more specifically, ITMO, where he is now working on promising solar cells for AI data centers. Read on to learn how to turn a crisis into a springboard, keep your humanity in an increasingly machine-centered world, and fall in love with the metro, where every station is a masterpiece.
Industrial robots are good at handling routine operations, but they are incapable of adapting to new conditions and take a long time to integrate into a process. This problem is solved at ITMO’s Laboratory of Embodied Intelligence in Robotics: here, researchers create systems that enable robots to see and act without an operator. The lab works with major clients and presents its research at international A* AI conferences. Students here work alongside more experienced colleagues and make up to 250,000 rubles a month.
The engineering infrastructure for the first construction stage of the education and innovation center ITMO Highpark has now been completed in the Pushkinsky District of St. Petersburg. This includes water and heat supply networks, wastewater drainage, gas and electricity supply, and communications networks. Also constructed are the street and road network, along with stormwater treatment facilities. The territory has been connected to the city’s main utility networks.
Researchers from ITMO’s Institute of Design and Urban Studies have created a service that analyzes the shortage or surplus of urban social infrastructure and provides construction proposals based on precise calculations. The service’s main advantage is its efficiency: depending on a city’s size, it takes 5-30 seconds to complete the analysis.
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