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July 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 2
Investment in AI is on the rise in Russia
The investment comes from undisclosed sovereign funds and major corporations, primarily located in Middle East and Asia. The only specific country that RDIF has mentioned is the United Arab Emirates.
Founded by the Russian government in 2011, RDIF manages $10bn of its own funds and another $40bn provided by co-investors.
The fund will conduct AI investments under a mandate that covers artificial intelligence and related fields, such as cloud computing, data processing and storage centres.
RDIF has compiled a shortlist of 20 local startups from which it will choose companies to invest in.
RDIF has already approved investment in VisionLabs, a company focused on face recognition technologies, in which Russia's largest, state-run lender Sberbank and the Sistema group's venture fund own a 25% share each, RDIF general director Kirill Dmitriev was quoted as saying by Russian business daily Vedomosti.
VisionLabs has been working in the face recognition segment since 2013 and offers solutions for the banking, retail and transportation industries.
Two other local startups that will collect RDIF investment are NeuroChat and Neurotrend, TASS news agency reported.
The former company develops systems that provide network communication to people with disabilities, including those diagnosed with cerebral palsy, ALS, cerebrovascular disease, multiple sclerosis and other neurotraumas. NeuroChat's solutions enable them to
communicate with medical personnel, relatives, friends and the entire world.
Neurotrend is focused on marketing solutions, utilizing neuromarketing technologies in the analysis of consumer preferences and perceptions.
Investment in the two companies under the RDIF mandate are expected to be spent on product and business development, as well as geographic expansion beyond Russia.
Also on the list of startups likely to collect RDIF investment are Oncobox, a developer of solutions for personalized genetic profiling to help doctors decide which drug to use in late-stage cancer patients, and Motorika, a manufacturer of body- powered and myoelectric prostheses.
RDIF's interest in the segment apparently reflects not only a growing number of local startups offer- ing AI solutions, but also an increased application of the technology across various sectors in Russia.
Just last month, Russian internet giant Mail.ru unveiled Marusya, an AI-driven voice assistant, in a bid to compete with Alisa from rival Yandex on a terrain already populated by Apple's Siri and Amazon's Alexa.
Meanwhile, Yandex recently showed its commit- ment to staying ahead in the AI race, announcing an AI-powered video stream personalization service enabling its users to receive a personalized video stream for live and on-demand video on Yandex. Live, the company’s streaming content platform.
Yandex' other highly anticipated solution is a self- driving vehicle equipped with "an AI-based computer vision system, up to 20 video cameras located around the perimeter of the vehicle, up to 10 radars, GPS sensors and high-precision cartography," which is expected to be released as early as in 2021.
However, AI adoption in Russia is not limited to the tech giants. Over the last couple of years, the technology has been making waves in the