Russia’s Amber Giant Goes Digital and Enters the Arab Market
Rostec’s amber facility is using AI to trace stones from mine to jewelry—and expanding into Bahrain as demand rises worldwide.
The Amber Combine operated by Rostec in Russia’s Kaliningrad region is pushing ahead with digital innovation and has announced the opening of a new representative office in Bahrain. Russia remains one of the world’s top sources of amber, with an estimated 90 percent of the planet’s known reserves located within its borders. Global demand for Russian amber, often referred to as the 'sunstone,' continues to grow, particularly in the Arab world.
The Kaliningrad Amber Combine is the only full-cycle industrial amber processing enterprise in the world. Its product line includes jewelry, decorative panels, artwork, and intricate souvenirs. Russian-made IT solutions are already being used in both extraction and processing. A new digital tagging initiative has recently been launched, covering both raw amber and finished pieces. The necessary software, hardware, and tagging protocols are already in place.
At the core of the system are artificial intelligence and machine vision. Neural networks will classify each piece of amber and assess its quality. This end-to-end traceability will allow stakeholders to follow the journey of every stone—from excavation to final product.
