Victor Soifer: “There Is Only One Science and its Fruit”

Researching by the staff of Samara National Research University is being embodied into real projects – from the software for the agroindustrial complex to spacecrafts. How has studies in photonics influenced the technological revolution of the 21st century? Will artificial intelligence be able to completely replace humans? How to increase applicants’ interest in technical specialties? Which technologies will become breakthrough in the near future? Professor Viktor Soifer, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Technical Sciences, President of Samara University, told about this in his interview to “Samarskoe Obozrenie” (Samara Review).

“You have been associated with Samara University for 63 years, including, of course, your studenthood. Please tell us about the scientific school you’ve created, because somehow, you once looked into the future. How has the school proven itself in the Samara Region, in Russia, and in the world?”

“Yes, I have had a rather long scientific career, and all these years I have been involved in creating the scientific school in one way or another, with its students to currently have become major scientists themselves. It is natural that during the time the tasks changed, but in general, the area that I chose at the dawn of my scientific career has remained the same – image recognition, image analysis, and complex signal processing using photonics methods and tools.

Our efforts are focused on photonics to be applied for the purposes of solving cybernetic tasks: sensing, information transferring, computing, decision-making and governing.

Our main research area is diffraction nanophotonics, which studies light diffraction on synthesized nanostructures and designs devices based on it. One of our recognized achievements is hyperspectral equipment with 150–200 spectral channels. This allows watching things that a person would not detect with a normal glance or with the help of standard optics. For example, from outer space, one can recognize the amount of fertilizers in the fields, a camouflage net on the ground, or a mine underground.

Our diffraction optics is also unique because of compactness of the devices: they can be installed in very small aerial vehicles, unmanned or space ones. Last November, three nanosatellites developed at our University, two of them by my students, were launched into outer space. These are the small spacecrafts “HyperView 1G” and “Colibri-S”, which will monitor oil spills and predict forest fires while in orbit. Our hyperspectrometers are installed in them.

Another development is miniature laser “nano-needles”, which make it possible to process materials with high precision, giving them new properties, as well as obtain microscopic images with ultra-high resolution”.

“What else would you consider to be the most significant scientific results of your school?”

“First of all, development of the school itself, that is, the persons who have achieved great scientific results, whose works are highly cited and awarded. So, in 2021, the team of authors under my guidance received the prestigious Yury Gagarin Prize of the Government of the Russian Federation in the field of space activities, for creating at the University the research and educational complex that provides world-class training in end-to-end technologies for the Earth remote sensing from outer space. Among the developers, there is also Oleg Kononenko, our University’s honorary graduate, a test cosmonaut instructor, Deputy Head of the Cosmonaut Training Centre, and the commander of the Cosmonaut Squad of Yury Gagarin Research and Test Cosmonaut Training Centre.

In November 2024, the group of my disciples was awarded by the Government of the Russian Federation in the field of science and technology. Experts highly appreciated our scientists’ work on developing intelligent multispectral systems for remote monitoring of the natural and manmade environment by using aerial vehicles, and I am very proud of both awards”.

“You have good followers, and you yourself have been awarded the Russian Government Prize twice, and it is given for innovations to be implemented in the real sector. It’s your team’s applied developments that would like to be talked about: what is their uniqueness?”

“Louis Pasteur said, “There is no “applied sciences”, but only one Science and its fruit, like a tree and its fruit generated by it”.

In 1982, I headed the Department of Technical Cybernetics, from which three more departments later separated under the leadership of established scientists, professors, and doctors of sciences: the Department of Geoinformatics and Information Security (Vladislav Sergeev), the Department of Nanoengineering (Vladimir Paveliev), the Department of Supercomputers and General Informatics (Vladimir Fursov).

For example, the practical tasks to be solved under Vladislav Sergeev’s leadership are developing geoinformation systems, products and services based on application of the Earth remote sensing. The research team works in areas in demand, such as urbanism and urban planning, natural resource development and agriculture, cartography and navigation, transport and monitoring of natural disasters. Due to our scientists’ efforts, cities and towns of the Samara Region have their own “digital twins” connected to other databases. The technology of the State GIS Information System of the Agroindustrial Complex (GIS APK) has been successfully implemented, which helps the relevant ministry monitor land use.

Another know-how for residents is the prototype of the service for objective assessment of real estate, which allows its users to select an apartment on the basis of various factors of the urban environment for their requests. The Samara Department of Economic Development, Investment and Trade has also implemented the University’s development – the robotic cartographer to create “digital profiles” of buildings and structures for multi-purpose analysis and identification of inconsistencies in municipal information resources. By the way, in 2022, this project got the recognition at the competition held by the Accounting Chamber of the Russian Federation, and won the prize in the Nomination “Problems Analysis”. Developments of our University’s scientists are used at the federal level, in particular, in the work of the Competence Centre of the National Technology Initiative for End-to-End Technologies”.

“Artificial intelligence seems to be endowed with remarkable abilities. But can it seriously compete with humans?”

“Artificial intelligence is at the peak of its popularity, the industry is developing everywhere, including our country. We have achieved a lot in this field. However, it is impossible to simulate the work of the human brain, and there is not and will not be such a computer. What is intelligence? AI’s work boils down to the ability to recognize images, environments, and make some decisions. Intelligence, in a person’s comprehension, is something different, it is the ability to communicate, remember emotions, and think associatively. AI does not know how to do this, it does only what it is taught”.

“Technologies to be developed at the University have already changed the world. What kind of know-how do you expect to see in the next few years?”

“Areas, such as neuroinformatics, neurophotonics and biocybernetics, are obvious to develop. A huge number of spacecrafts are launched into outer space, and they interact with each other, as those in the global SpaceX satellite system. We gradually become covered by the informational technosphere that literally sees everything, this huge data is fed into supercomputers, to be processed. Mobile communication technologies with high-speed Internet also do not stand still, photonics is already widely used in 6G, and 10G networks are going to appear. Fraudulent schemes will be actively improved, and they also need to be resisted. We have already grown the a “bowed heads” generation – people who walk not down the street, but following the navigator, they deprive themselves of the opportunity for admiring everything to surround them”.

“But dreamers, with their bright eyes and the desire to do something with own hands, also come to universities…”

“Unfortunately, we are witnessing such a trend that many school graduates think of themselves as humanitarians rather than technicians, they enter specialties that are not related to production, and engineering work requires efforts, knowledge, and constant growth. Therefore, there is a shortage of applicants for engineering specialties at universities. Over the past three years, school graduates have begun to take physics on the Unified State Exam half as much, and this is a disaster, because one can’t go in for engineering without knowledge of physics. The situation needs to be fixed. We, in turn, work with schools, quantoriums, and educational centres, and I personally give lectures to schoolchildren”.

“Has it been possible in recent years to resume close cooperation between the University’s research laboratories and the enterprises of the rocket and space complex? That is, to realize the scheme, which allows research students to implement their developments at the production?”

“We have the closest cooperation with the Rostec and Rosatom State Corporations. For example, within the project on creating the analogue photonic computing system capable of processing video data hundreds of times faster than modern digital neural networks based on traditional semiconductor computers, with the 98% accuracy of object recognition in video streams.

Today, our country faces many challenges, and we would like the education system to respond to them more acutely and be more agile. Without basic science, nothing will be fly, drive and shoot. No wonder Korolev and Kurchatov, our countrymen Kozlov and Kuznetsov were academicians, they were both scientists and engineers. It is they and their colleagues who created our country’s nuclear missile shield.

What is an engineer? This is a person who creates a new environment, not one that has grown like grass, but one that was born as a scientific idea, and then embodied in the form of metal, electronics, photonics or biotechnology. Engineer means a verb! Due to the labour of scientists, engineers and workers, our country has become an industrial power. Now we need to have again our own civilian planes, top-class cars, our own electronics – everything necessary for human life and protection of our Motherland”.

Source: “Samarskoe Obozrenie” (Samara Review)