MLIT JINR enhances cooperation with the Republic of Kazakhstan On 18 March, representatives of the Republic of Kazakhstan Askar Khikmetov, Rector of Astana IT University, and Nurzhan Saduyev, Deputy Director General for Scientific Work at the Institute of Nuclear Physics (INP) of the Ministry of Energy of the Republic of Kazakhstan, visited the JINR Meshcheryakov Laboratory of Information Technologies. The visit was organized to discuss opportunities for establishing cooperation with MLIT in the field of computing and IT personnel training. As Askar Khikmetov said at a meeting with MLIT Director Sergei Shmatov, in light of the decision taken to create the Nuclear Energy Agency under the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the active development of the country’s energy sector will entail close attention to information technologies. For this purpose, an IT laboratory focused on both fundamental and applied scientific tasks is planned to be created on the basis of the resources of Astana IT University and the Institute of Nuclear Physics. In this regard, the representatives of the Republic of Kazakhstan expressed great interest in developing cooperation with JINR, and in particular, in MLIT’s expertise in organizing data centers and distributed computing. One of the key topics of the meeting was the training of highly qualified personnel in the IT field. The parties discussed the possibilities of organizing practices and internships for young scientists from Kazakhstan. The Kazakh side was greatly interested in the proposal to hold MLIT’s traditional youth School of Information Technologies in the format of an off-site event in the Republic of Kazakhstan. In turn, MLIT Director Sergei Shmatov told the guests about the Laboratory’s high interest in the influx of young specialists from Kazakhstan and in the enhancement of cooperation with the Republic of Kazakhstan in distributed computing. At the meeting, Nurzhan Saduev highlighted long-standing and fruitful cooperation between INP and JINR. The parties confirmed their intention to continue active work on developing cooperation. The further elaboration of preliminary agreements and the first practical steps for organizing joint work will be discussed by the MLIT Directorate and the Plenipotentiary Representative of the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan at JINR within events of the JINR Finance Committee and the JINR Committee of Plenipotentiary Representatives on 24-25 March. Yerzhan Mukhamejanov, VBLHEP senior researcher and head of the Kazakhstan national group at JINR, Yelena Mazhitova, MLIT researcher, and Dosbol Baigarashev, VBLHEP junior researcher, participated in the meeting. At the end of the discussions, Askar Khikmetov, accompanied by MLIT Director Sergei Shmatov, got acquainted with the JINR Multifunctional Information and Computing Complex (MICC) and the “Govorun” supercomputer. At MLIT JINR, Askar Khikmetov also met with the Laboratory’s Scientific Leader Vladimir Korenkov. The parties agreed to continue the discussion of opportunities for developing cooperation in the educational sphere on 19 March at a meeting with Acting Rector of Dubna State University Andrey Denikin. On the same day, the representatives of the Republic of Kazakhstan took part in a solemn seminar dedicated to the 95th anniversary of the birth of the outstanding scientist, one of the founders of LCTA/MLIT JINR, Nikolay Nikolaevich Govorun.
