“AI Journey 2023”: a conference dedicated to artificial intelligence opened in Moscow

This year the organizers expect an audience of 100 million

The opening of the eighth international conference “Journey into the World of Artificial Intelligence” or “AI Journey” took place in Moscow. This year it will last three days and will include three main tracks: science, business and society.

On the first day, speakers will talk about global trends in AI technologies, large language models, the use of AI in neural networks and generative models. During the youth track, there will be an open dialogue with young conference participants who have already achieved success and are continuing their bright path in the field of AI. This will be followed by lectures by experts in the field of advanced technologies, workshops and master classes.

The conference was opened by Assistant to the President of the Russian Federation Maxim Oreshkin, First Deputy Chairman of the Board of Sberbank Alexander Vedyakhin and Deputy Minister of Science and Higher Education of Russia Andrei Omelchuk.

“We started the story of “AI Journey” modestly, there were about a thousand of us. Last year, the total audience was about 50 million, this year we are aiming for 100 million, since we have many participating countries. We can already see that “AI Journey” is the largest platform that brings together a huge number of participants from all over the world,” Vedyakhin said in his welcoming speech.

He added that more than 200 speakers from Russia, India, China, South Africa, Indonesia, the UAE and other countries will speak at the conference. The focus is on strong AI, generative AI, multimodal models, computer vision, and other aspects of this key technology. Vedyakhin specifically noted that on the first day of the conference the results of two AI competitions will be summed up: the AI ​​Challenge for participants under 18 years of age and the AI ​​Contest for adult researchers.

“More than 2,300 solutions were submitted to the children’s competition; 251 teams from 47 countries competed for prizes. So this is a big international competition, where passions ran high until the very end. The adult contest, where experienced data scientists participated, received a record number of solutions – over 12,000, which is twice as many as last year. More than 1,300 people from 20 countries took part in this competition,” he said.

“Even in such a conservative area as healthcare, 16% of institutions have already switched to AI-based solutions. It is obvious that this trend will only gain momentum. This is a positive contribution to the development of people’s living standards. In Russia over the past year there have been a large number of changes in all areas. It’s great that Russia is showing serious achievements in technology. The conference will talk a lot about global changes. It’s great that we have great language models in our country. And GigaChat from Sber, and YandexGPT. These technologies are being introduced into our lives. They change life in our country,” Oreshkin said.

“It is impossible to develop science without training. We see that today there is a shortage of these personnel in the country, including due to the growing demand for them from all industries. That’s why we are developing new bachelor’s and master’s programs; there are already more than 100 of them. Last year, 88 universities launched them. Last year, 250 thousand people enrolled in these programs, and this year there are already more than half a million. We understand that the demand among applicants is growing, and their teachers also need to improve their qualifications,” Omelchuk shared with the audience.

Tomorrow experts will discuss the use of AI technologies in business (AI Journey Business). The focus of the discussions will be the development of artificial intelligence in transport, industry, medicine, creativity, finance, development, the agricultural industry, etc. Recommender systems, robotics and other areas of knowledge will be discussed.

On the final day of the conference, a key theme will be the role of AI in creating innovative solutions for ESG and for the benefit of society. The ESG track will address the impact of AI on climate, energy transition, biodiversity, education and the social sphere.