St. Petersburg Launches State-Run IT Lyceum

The new high-tech school blends traditional subjects with robotics, AI, and drone piloting to prepare the next generation of digital natives.

St. Petersburg has opened a state-run IT lyceum designed to immerse students in advanced technologies alongside their core education. Beyond standard subjects, the curriculum includes robotics, programming, 3D modeling, neural networks, virtual reality, and drone piloting.

The campus is built for hands-on learning. It features digital production workshops, physics and chemistry labs, robotics studios, and engineering classrooms, all equipped with interactive hardware. The 24,700-square-meter facility can accommodate 1,100 students and offers more than just labs: it includes a library with co-working zones, swimming pools, a football field, sports courts, an auditorium, a cafeteria, five computer science classrooms, and a dedicated robotics lab.

Russia’s push into digital education is reshaping classrooms nationwide. At a recent teachers’ forum in the Moscow region, officials reported that 30 percent of teachers and 80 percent of students across the country are already using AI in their daily work. In Moscow’s suburbs, that figure climbs to nearly 100 percent, with neural networks managing everything from document workflows to lesson planning and information gathering.