“Russia has historically been amongst the pioneers,” Eduard Lysenko, Minister of the Government of Moscow, tells me, “thanks to a talented body of workers and an extended subculture of mathematics. In our minds, we’ve evolved some of the step forward solutions to allow Russia to stay amongst the top A.I. countries.”
Lysenko heads up Moscow’s Department of Information Technologies, and this ‘one of a kind’ interview has come about because he needs to speak approximately 5G and the town’s deployment plans. He knows that I want to talk about citywide facial reputation and Moscow’s choice to deploy a Huawei 5G community, given the safety fears raised with the U.S.
Somewhat ironically, it quickly transpires that Moscow’s surveillance playbook can be proper out of Beijing.
East is East During the soccer World Cup last 12 months, Russia famously deployed facial reputation to help police the occasion. “The facial recognition device enabled the police to detain 12 criminals from the federal list of desired men and women and eight pickpockets, as well as 60 football lovers who had been banned from the fits.” All alternate in 2019, even though Moscow plans to catapult the town into the Chinese Super League for facial popularity. “At present,” Lysenko explains, “the facial reputation machine has been geared up in a pilot mode to one,500 video streams, representing 1.5% of Moscow’s 167,000 video cameras. In this 12 months, we intend to grow the wide variety to one zero five,000, meaning all of the cameras established in public areas to optimize the usage of the gadget.”
Moscow already makes heavy use of its citywide surveillance gadget, that’s “now used to research 70% of crimes in Moscow. Recently, video surveillance has also been used to discover the individual who stole Arkhip Kunidzhi’s portray from the State Tretyakov Gallery.” The system captures 1.2 billion hours of video every 12 months, troubles 45,000 site visitors OK each day, and has helped electricity a unified system that the government claim reduces the arrivals time for first responders to an occasion by 20%. But it isn’t always simply CCTV. Remember the testimonies placed out with the aid of China’s P.R. system, of cops equipped with A.I. clever-glasses? Well, Moscow plans the same. “In future, 5G will permit us to enlarge the gadget with new gadgets like facial recognition glasses for police officers. We are checking out augmented fact glasses with embedded facial popularity abilities collectively with Ntechlab organization, which is known for growing the facial popularity device FindFace.”
FindFace is a reasonably accurate facial recognition engine, the standout in a country recognized for its prowess in space. But Lysenko also talks of global collaboration, with China being the apparent vicinity to begin. “Our task is to use smart video surveillance structures to display city processes and ensure residents’ protection. Our CCTV gadget uses popular technologies advanced through Russian groups. Of direction, we’re interested in exchanging experience with our overseas colleagues, including China, which has superior within the deployment of the facial recognition system more than other international locations.”
5G – is Huawei in or out?
Which brings the dialogue to 5G. Moscow has already played around with 5G and plans complete-scale pilots through 2019. “During the 2018 World Cup,” Lysenko tells me, “MegaFon used Nokia 5G device to illustrate V.R. Broadcast generation. Fifty human beings used V.R. glasses to watch a broadcast. Stadium cameras broadcast to a 5G cellular tower, and the cellular tower transmitted to smartphones connected to the V.R. glasses, the use of up to 35 Mbps in keeping with a tool.” Now, although, “MegaFon has stated they have got agreed to expand and put into effect 5G standards in Russia with Huawei.”
And that brings the discussion to the worries raised by the U.S. and the United Kingdom, particularly about the safety risks associated with Huawei, which include the allegations that the business enterprise may facilitate intelligence series for Beijing. On this concern, Lysenko’s reaction is short and to the factor. “The Russian Federation has strict data protection guidelines which we constantly observe.” I suspect Russia and Washington have exceptional views of the risk to their respective countrywide safety from Huawei’s alleged intelligence links with Beijing. Huawei may not get it all, in any case. “There are different groups with different partnerships,” Lysenko says. “Russian telecommunication operators will pick out 5G companies for pilot zones based totally on their procurement regulations and are now getting ready technical requirements for 5G generation implementation. After that, the method will boost up. We cooperate with many system companies, including Huawei, Nokia, Ericsson, Qualcomm, and IBM.”
And what approximately Russian device producers?
“The selections are being made through the [network operators] and now not the authorities,” but “we hope that neighborhood Russian carriers will come to the pilot initiatives so one can show their progress.” The intention is for the 2019 pilots to build on the achievement of the World Cup trial, with “full business use of 5G anticipated in 2020-2022.” The 2019 pilots will target key regions in Moscow. “These areas fall into foremost categories,” Lysenko explains. “Crowded places, like parks and relevant streets, where consumer technology 5G exams and demonstrations may be held, after which innovation centers and technoparks, where generation businesses can be able to check business 5G.” And for Lysenko, this is all about industry and automation. Moscow’s I.T. Department “has its very own A.I. department that works on enforcing A.I. in metropolis management. For instance, the automation of report type and robot operators processing 40% of all requests to the town’s name center – the robot is incorporated with the town records structures. It may offer answers to 62 traditional questions; it may understand feelings and self-learn.”
