Innopolis Trains Students to Predict Equipment Failures
Innopolis University has developed a module for teaching students AI. In 144 hours, robotics students can learn to become predictive-maintenance engineers, using data to determine when equipment is likely to fail.
Industrial equipment needs maintenance, but predicting failures before they happen and extending equipment life requires a particular set of skills. Innopolis University is training professionals with those capabilities. The university has added a course module on predictive analytics and intelligent maintenance planning for mechanical engineering to the curriculum.
144 Hours to Become a Top Engineer
The program developed at Innopolis consists of 144 academic hours, including 82 hours of hands-on training. Students will work through industrial problems, analyze production data, build models to predict equipment failures and estimate how much useful life machinery has left. To do that, they will learn Python, machine-learning libraries, SQL and data-visualization tools.
The first university to launch the course is Kabardino-Balkarian State University named after H.M. Berbekov. Fourteen students in its bachelor's program in Mechatronics and Robotics are scheduled to begin the module in the sixth semester of the 2026–27 academic year. The course is designed to help them understand how machinery works and teach them to predict its performance using algorithms. Zamir Shomakhov, director of the university's Institute of Electronics, Robotics and Artificial Intelligence, explained: “We want our graduates to leave the institute with a clear understanding of how AI is transforming traditional industries.”
Mechanics Meets AI
In 2021, Russian universities received grants to develop artificial intelligence programs, significantly accelerating the training of AI professionals in higher education. Some programs, however, were already in place. ITMO University, for example, was already running its Robototekhnika i iskusstvennyy intellekt (Robotics and Artificial Intelligence) program, where machine learning and applied AI played an important role alongside mechanics and automation.
Innopolis University then continued expanding applied AI into different sectors of the economy by opening a research center that developed cross-industry AI technologies for digital transformation in priority areas.
In 2024, ITMO University, the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT), HSE University and Innopolis University joined Yandex and Sber to launch AI360. It was Russia's first bachelor's program for future AI architects and researchers. St. Petersburg State University later joined the initiative. That same year, MIPT and Avito launched a joint master's program in Data Science, with Avito covering students' tuition costs.
In 2025, Innopolis University introduced AI course modules for medical, chemistry and teacher-education programs. In 2026, eight universities signed agreements to incorporate them into 22 degree programs, with instruction scheduled to begin in the new academic year.
Architects of Smart Manufacturing
The introduction of a module like this points to the emergence of a new kind of robotics professional, one who is equally comfortable with mechanics, automation, data and artificial intelligence. That combination is particularly important for industry, where predictive maintenance, digital manufacturing and smart factories are increasingly in demand.
The module was developed as part of the Iskusstvennyy intellekt (Artificial Intelligence) federal project under the Ekonomika dannykh i tsifrovaya transformatsiya gosudarstva (Data Economy and Digital Transformation of the State) national project. The importance attached to this effort is reflected in comments by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Speaking at Sber's AI conference in 2022, he said: “Every national project and government program should include measures to implement artificial intelligence.”
Russia's educational approaches could be of interest to other countries pursuing industrial digitalization, but the main focus is on adoption within Russia. Innopolis University's experience suggests that universities do not necessarily need to create entirely new degree programs when ready-made AI modules can instead be incorporated into existing curricula.
