19 May 14:20
The Norilsk Nickel company demonstrated its digital competencies at the Digital Industry of Industrial Russia (CIPR) forum in Nizhny Novgorod.
Smart technologies now control 80% of key equipment in the company's mines and smelters. The economic effect of their use is estimated at more than 10 billion rubles, and by 2030 it will reach 50 billion rubles.
“Artificial intelligence gives us an entry point to apply more advanced technologies. In the next few years, with the help of artificial intelligence, we expect to obtain a result that will not only optimize our management processes and logistics of work in the mining region, but will also allow us to do something that a person cannot do: quickly change various production parameters,” said Norilsk Nickel President Vladimir Potanin.
Representatives of the company showed industrial algorithms in action to the guests at their stand. On it, the visitor acts as an operator managing the entire production chain. Four interactive zones and a central console clearly show the logic of how neural networks work: from designing factories and synthesizing new materials to controlling a robotic drill and optimizing ore grinding.
Norilsk Nickel notes that by 2030, two-thirds of technological processes will be transferred to artificial intelligence. People will engage in expertise, control and make strategic decisions. Norilsk Nickel President Vladimir Potanin emphasized that a person must still make decisions, but his functionality will change.
“We are not trying to create digital employees to replace people, we are trying to create new processes and new functionality,” said the head of the company.
The full-fledged systemic implementation of neural networks was a response to personnel shortages, limited access to external technologies and the degradation of familiar information services. The company emphasizes that the effect of algorithms is especially noticeable in heavy industry, where design takes up a tenth of the investment budget, but forms up to 90% of the future value of the object.
For design, the company implements the MetalGPT-C language model, trained on building codes, GOSTs and a twenty-year archive of the company’s design solutions. She can generate 3D models herself, reducing the time required to prepare project documentation from twenty to three weeks, and the required team resources by six times. The pilot project showed that the AI system helped reduce the cost of the foundation by 15–25% due to the accurate selection of alternative parameters.
AI is also helping to change management processes. The effect becomes noticeable only when the entire business process is restructured. Based on this model, a digital department was launched in the Polar Branch, where more than 80% of the functions of investment analysis and budget control were transferred to AI agents. Machine intelligence brings together data faster and more accurately, eliminating human errors and speeding up some steps by four times. For capital construction projects, this means commissioning facilities several months ahead of schedule.
Close attention to the CIPR forum from the Government of the Russian Federation confirms the platform’s status as the main decision-making center in the field of digitalization of the IT landscape.
