NSU and Iskitim agree on introducing AI into urban governance

Agreement at the Golden Valley forum

Novosibirsk State University and the administration of Iskitim in Novosibirsk Region have agreed to introduce artificial intelligence technologies into municipal management. The agreement was concluded at the IV Scientific and Production Forum Golden Valley, the university's press service told TASS, Gazeta.Ru reports. Iskitim head Sergey Zavrazhin called the document not a one-off project but the beginning of systematic work, and emphasized that the city is bringing together science and urban governance so that decisions are not only innovative but also viable.

What the SIGMA platform will provide

The technological foundation will be the SIGMA platform developed at NSU. It makes it possible to create digital twins of cities: to model the operation of urban infrastructure and assess the consequences of management decisions before they are implemented in practice. In addition, the Iskitim administration has expressed interest in systems for automatically processing citizens' requests, predicting emergencies in municipal services, and modeling the operation of heating networks. For residents, this means that some city decisions — from responding to requests to managing heat supply — may in the future be prepared on the basis of computer models, although the publication does not specify implementation timelines.

Context

Earlier, as the outlet notes, it was reported that AI technologies within smart city concepts are being actively implemented in 55 regions of Russia — to optimize the urban environment and improve residents' comfort. Iskitim is thus joining this direction, relying on the development of a regional university. The publication is marked as being updated, so details of the project's implementation may be clarified.