Uralchem and Uralkali took part in the demonstration day of the Digital Chemistry Forum held at the Chemistry Industrial Centre of Competences (ICC). The demo day was attended by leaders of the chemical industry, which presented their out-of-the-box digital solutions, discussed the current needs of the industry, and shared the latest practices in introducing import-independent IT and industrial automation systems.

In their presentation, Uralchem’s team explained how the company ran a working group focusing on an open automatic process control system. A transition to new architecture would enable a customer business to cut its costs, improve resource efficiency, and minimise risks without being dependent on a particular vendor. Uralchem’s booth also featured VR simulators, which the company designed to train operating personnel and plant managers.

In turn, Uralkali presented its proprietary mining and geological information system, which it has been developing since 2013 to ensure safe and efficient management of its mining facilities.

The attending representatives of the state, as well as of the business and expert communities, asked about practical application of AI technologies in the chemical sector. Specialists from Uralchem shared their views on how approaches to the development of recommender models could be transformed and on the prospects for converting various services to automatic control. Speakers of the forum also discussed plans to arrange similar experience-sharing gathering in the future.

Nikita Popov, Uralitech CEO:

The establishment of the ICC helped create a pool of experts representing the industry’s leaders, which have managed to properly analyse external challenges and come up with possible solutions. Members of the industrial centre developed nine projects of special importance, and Uralchem was tasked to implement three of those. The projects aim to create competitive domestic solutions to allow the Russian business to retain its leadership. The centre demonstrates a high level of performance, and we can see today that it had been the right decision to work together via this centre and that we are moving in the right direction.

Aleksey Bondarenko, Head of Digitisation Department, Uralchem:

For Uralchem and Uralkali, the key value in being members of the ICC is about being able to address issues more swiftly by efficiently distributing resources between the companies. This enables every market participant to generate the required solutions in the shortest time possible.