MOSCOW, December 5. / TASS /. Russia's Sberbank will soon open the first non-profit academic institute in Russia where artificial intelligence will be studied, said bank CEO Herman Gref at the AI Journey conference on Thursday.

"In the near future, we will open the first AI institute in Russia with the involvement of leading domestic and world scientists. The main mission of the institute is to provide an interdisciplinary approach to research to create general artificial intelligence," Gref said.

According to information posted on the SberPress website, the AI institute is scheduled to open in Moscow in January 2021. At the first stage, the institute will be academic, that is, focused on the symbiosis of fundamental research and their orientation in the applied directions of human activity. A German scientist based in Switzerland, one of the world's most famous specialists in the field of artificial intelligence, Jürgen Schmidhuber, was invited to become an Honorary Director of Science of the Institute.

Corrects para 3 after clarification by company in press release.