Big Data Analysis and a Smart Compass for Selecting Store Locations
In September 2023, ITMO and Napoleon IT – AI Talent Hub, a joint Master's program in Artificial Intelligence, launched an AI lab with X5 Tech at the institute. For 9 months, young ML engineers worked in a team with experienced X5 Tech experts and presented several new products for one of the country's largest retailers, X5 Group. Following the internship, the best Master's students became full-fledged employees of X5 Tech.
As part of the joint AI laboratory, X5 Tech and AI Talent Hub developed an MVP system using machine learning models for implementation in the processes of the X5 Group retailer.
The first product the team created was a service with RAG (Research Advanced Generation). The service includes generating a response to users taking into account additional relevant information from large text documents. The result of big data analysis is formed on the basis of machine learning technology.
“AI lab specialists have improved some business metrics by 40% and integrated the RAG algorithm into our system. The updated system will speed up the verification of the relevance of information in large systems and automate QA systems,” explained Michiel Egorov, head of the generative network development team at X5 Group.
The second product developed by the combined team was the platform Shop Placement Platform. It allows you to forecast revenue in a specific location based on geodata and sales information. The model, like a compass, helps determine the optimal location of new stores for X5 Group, effectively taking into account risks when planning retail outlets.
“It is extremely important for the company to effectively forecast the sales density of a new store. Firstly, to determine the most successful location for the future store, and secondly, for clear planning of financial indicators. We thank the students of the laboratory for their involvement and contribution to the joint work,” commented Diana Ulyanova, Senior Manager for Big Data at X5 Tech.
As part of the cooperation, X5 Tech identified the best students of AI Talent Hub and invited them to work full-time in the company. For example, first-year Master's student Alexander Potekhin joined the X5 team through a project seminar and is now working on large language models (LLM). Student Daniil Solovyov became part of the X5 Tech team, where he works on model risk as a Fullstack developer, and Maxim Golovin became a Data Scientist in CVM and is engaged in data analysis, preparation of training datasets, training models and interpretation of results.
This is far from the first such experience of hiring students by large companies. Earlier, another AI Talent Hub Master's student Vladimir Dimitrov became part of the RUTUBE team as part of a project to develop AI-based recommendation systems, making a significant contribution to the work on the AI model for the platform.
The training in the AI Talent Hub Master's program itself takes two years. During this time, aspiring IT specialists can become world-class professionals in artificial intelligence, developing through work on real business problems and gaining experience from specialists from renowned companies that are partners of the educational platform: Napoleon IT, MTS, VK, Yandex, Sber, Tatneft and others.
