MLIT strengthens cooperation
with scientific organizations of South Africa

On 10–21 November 2025, the Directorate of the Meshcheryakov Laboratory of Information Technologies visited South Africa. Within the visit, organized with the support of South Africa’s national accelerator center, NRF iThemba LABS, the delegation visited a number of key scientific organizations in South Africa, learned about their investigations, and met with their management and leading scientists. The purpose of the visit was also to present MLIT’s major activities to the South African representatives and discuss opportunities for cooperation.

During the visit, MLIT Director Sergei Shmatov and his Deputy Nikolay Voytishin delivered a series of talks on MLIT’s scientific program and the capabilities of the JINR Multifunctional Information and Computing Complex (MICC) to the general South African scientific community. Along with them, the Laboratory’s Directorate was represented by Scientific Leader Vladimir Korenkov and Scientific Secretary Olga Derenovskaia. The delegation also included JINR UC Director Dmitry Kamanin, MLIT senior researchers Danila Oleynik and Artem Petrosyan, and junior researcher at the JINR Dzhelepov Laboratory of Nuclear Problems Aleksandr Boikov.

On 12 November, the MLIT staff members participated in a study visit to iThemba LABS in Cape Town. The visit started with a meeting featuring welcome speeches from iThemba LABS Deputy Director Rudolph Nchodu and MLIT Director Sergei Shmatov. Rudolph Nchodu presented an overview of iThemba LABS’s major scientific activities and the accelerator center’s research facilities. Later, accompanied by Rudolph Nchodu and iThemba LABS Managing Director Makondelele Victor Tshivhase, the MLIT representatives toured the center’s key scientific infrastructure components, namely, the K200 Separated Sector Cyclotron (SSC), the South African Isotope Facility (SAIF), the Tandetron accelerator, and several nuclear physics experimental facilities. At the end of the visit, the parties exchanged opinions and discussed the possibilities for organizing joint research projects and practical steps necessary for this.

In Cape Town, the MLIT delegation also visited the South African Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC) and the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO) office. During the visit to Stellenbosch University, the MLIT representatives met with Director of the National Institute for Theoretical and Computational Sciences (NITheCS) Francesco Petruccione to discuss opportunities for cooperation.

During their busy visit to South Africa, the MLIT delegation held a meeting in Pretoria with corporate executive team members of the National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa and visited Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University (SMU), the Tshwane University of Technology (TUT), and the University of Pretoria (UP).

In Johannesburg, the MLIT representatives and UC Director Dmitry Kamanin visited the University of South Africa (UNISA). At a meeting with UNISA’s management and leading scientists, Dmitry Kamanin presented an overview of JINR’s research areas, international cooperation, educational activities, and key research facilities. Sergei Shmatov delivered a talk on the capabilities of the MICC and MLIT’s research activities. In turn, Head of the Department of Physics Mantile Lekala provided an overview of UNISA’s research activities to the JINR delegation. During the tour, the guests got familiar with the university’s scientific equipment for research in chemistry and physics. At a meeting summarizing the visit to UNISA, the parties discussed possible areas of cooperation.

Commenting on the results of the visit to South Africa, Sergei Shmatov highlighted that several potential research projects in collaboration with South African colleagues had been outlined. Furthermore, an agreement to organize a joint workshop on machine learning with the participation of South African scientific organizations was reached. Cooperation in the area of training young personnel is also being considered. This includes the organization of an IT school for representatives from South Africa and Egypt to implement the idea of holding the JINR Joint School for Africa, which was discussed at the Egyptian Academy of Scientific Research and Technology in Cairo in October of this year.

Source MLIT JINR