For the press

The main task of the Autonomous Cluster Fund Tech Garden is to introduce innovations in the industry of Kazakhstan.

As part of the country's industrial and innovative development, Tech Garden is the operator of Cluster Industry 4.0.

Cluster objective

Creating an ecosystem to support industries in their digital transformation and stimulate active digital adoption.

Aim

To create a critical mass of enterprises "beacons" — market drivers. For this, it is necessary to support about 20% of the most advanced enterprises of the mining and metallurgical complex, oil and gas sector, mechanical engineering and other industries that are actively introducing new technologies to acquire financial and operational advantages.

According to WEF experts' estimates, these 20% will create an impulse and competitive environment, which will become an incentive for automation and digitalization for the rest of the country's industrial enterprises.

To support is to provide the industry with a set of tools to bring enterprises to the next technological level. That's why Tech Garden in the Cluster Industry 4.0 consolidates the efforts of a number of ministries, development institutes, universities and research institutes, the capabilities of IT-companies, vendors, and enterprises themselves.

ACF Tech Garden has done a lot of work to attract to the country advanced technologies and their adaptation to the domestic industry. Today, the Fund offers enterprises individual solutions for automation and digitalization, ranging from monitoring and evaluation, strategy development to the implementation of finished products.

For this purpose, the Foundation has technology laboratories in such areas as New Materials and Additive Technologies, Digital Construction, Digital Industry (Industry 4.0) and Intelligent Systems (Blockchain, Big Data). Also ACF Tech Garden is the operator on realization of research and development for the enterprises — subsoil users within the limits of their obligations on deduction of 1% SGD/ZND.

Combining all these tools, the ACF has created an integrated Smart Industry Management Platform (SIMP) — a supermarket of domestic IT and innovative solutions for scaling at industrial enterprises of Kazakhstan. The platform provides industrial enterprises with access to the best domestic IT and innovative developments. On this platform enterprises place their orders, IT and innovative companies - their solutions.

Combining all these tools, the ACF has created an integrated Smart Industry Management Platform (SIMP) — a supermarket of domestic IT and innovative solutions for scaling at industrial enterprises of Kazakhstan. The platform provides industrial enterprises with access to the best domestic IT and innovative developments. On this platform enterprises place their orders, IT and innovative companies — their solutions.

Key opportunities for IT companies:

— conclusion of a contract with industrial enterprises;
— access to the pool of open tasks and needs of enterprises;
— promotion of the company in the media.

The main opportunities for industrial enterprises:

— improving the efficiency of innovation implementation;
— obtaining high-quality domestic solutions;
— open and reliable information about participating companies.

In the framework of the Cluster Industry 4.0 the modernization scheme on three levels of enterprises is considered:

Standardized production:

  • Sensors 
  • Design Systems (CAD/CAE/CAM)
  • Industrial digitalization systems (ERP, MES, etc.)
  • Predictive analytics
  • Cloud computing

Transparent production:

  • Industrial and Collaborative
    robots

  • Virtual / update
    reality (VR / AR)
  • Simulation modeling
  • In-depth analytical tools
  • Digital Doppelganger

Smart production:

  • Autonomous transport
  • Machine interaction
  • Artificial Intelligence

Tasks of Cluster Industry 4.0:

  • Reducing costs and improving management efficiency by 10%
  • 20% increase in labor productivity
  • Capital cost reduction through PaaS/SaaaS scaling by 70%

Among the obvious leaders of digitalization today are such enterprises as JSC "AK Altynalmas", which already use Tech Garden solutions.

ACF Tech Garden has unique experience. We are the first government company in the country that actually implemented the element of Industry 4.0 in an industrial enterprise. This is the implementation of an artificial intelligence platform brains.app to optimize the grinding scheme at the Aktogay gold extraction plant of JSC "AK Altynalmas". This is a successful project, and this success was achieved thanks to predictive analysis, processing of large amounts of data with the help of artificial intelligence.

Our Technology Development Center (laboratory) "Intellisense-LAB" has digitized the area where in principle it is impossible to install sensors or sensors for data collection. These are huge mill drums which are constantly in motion. But over the years of operation of the mill complex has accumulated a huge amount of information: the frequency of wear of the inner lining balls, the quality of the loaded ore, data on planned and unforeseen stops and much more. All these data were uploaded to the artificial intelligence platform, and for several months the computer worked in parallel with the actual production. As a result, the data provided by artificial intelligence allowed to reduce unplanned stoppages by several times, to predict the terms of ball and lining wear and tear, to optimize the process and make it controllable and even more predictable.

However, it should be recognized that many leaders are not yet morally and financially ready for large-scale modernization. The reason for this is the lack of information about the economic effects of digitalization and the available technologies of Industry 4.0. To overcome these barriers, Tech Garden offers a number of consistent measures.

The first step for the enterprises will be the necessity to form the concept of changes in their production or business processes. At this stage, Tech Garden offers a program of Corporate Innovation, whose task is to clarify the need for digitalization on the example of international and domestic practices.

In order to make up for the lack of information at enterprises about available IT solutions for Industry 4.0 products and their effects, online/offline conferences and exhibitions are held. Information centers based on the Reference Visit model are created on the basis of regional hubs. This will undoubtedly lead to companies' interest in modernization.

The next stage starts with the development of the Digitalization Strategy. To do this, you need to diagnose enterprises based on international standards and tools. To implement diagnostics, Tech Garden has a Digitalization Assessment Toolkit, which can be used to make enterprise diagnostics and develop a step-by-step strategy with specific recommendations.

Next comes the selection of IT solutions using the Smart Industry Management Platform and rapid calculation of investments and expected benefits and implementation of pilot projects.

Reduction of costs for automation and digitalization is achieved by involving domestic IT companies, holding a corporate acceleration course for them to sharpen a specific solution to the problems of industrial enterprises. The best solutions will receive venture financing - investments into mature startups, pilot projects.

One of the moral aspects of the industrial revolution has always been the issue of displacement of human labor. However, the experience of the so-called "beacons" showed a completely different reality. It turned out that for 62% of existing professions can be automated about a third of their tasks. The remaining two thirds not only remain to a person - they require personal and professional growth. An important step towards the successful implementation of technologies and approaches of "Industry 4.0" is to train workers and prepare them for these changes.

This task is also successfully performed by the ACF. Last year, the Center for Technological Development (Laboratory) "Intellisense-LAB" held a series of training seminars, more than 160 students received new knowledge and certificates. Our specialists, who conducted the training, note with satisfaction the growing interest in such a complex area as Artificial Intelligence and machine learning. Each successive seminar attracted more and more attendees. And with each seminar they took an increasing level of knowledge.

In the framework of the Cluster Industry 4.0 training continues in the areas of Industry 4.0 in cooperation with universities and research institutes, business community and civil society in terms of adaptation of education and training system to the requirements of digitalization. The enterprises will train and retrain specialists under corporate and regional retraining and professional development programs.

State support measures are being worked out with the government. It is under consideration:

Reimbursement of expenses:

1. for development and/or examination of a comprehensive plan of an industrial and innovation project;
2. to increase efficiency of production organization;
3. to improve the competence of the enterprise;
4. to improve technological processes;
5. subjects of industrial and innovative activity to promote domestic processed goods, works, services in the domestic market;
6. financing of investment projects.