TEHRAN – Uzbekistan is eager to use Iran’s experience to meet its technological needs in the field of biotech, agriculture, artificial intelligence, and drought management, Minister of Innovative Development of Uzbekistan, Ibrokhim Abdurakhmonov, has said.

He made the remarks in a meeting with the Iranian vice president for science and technology, Sourena Sattari, in Tehran on Tuesday.

Abdurakhmonov expressed interest in using Iran’s experience in creating technology and innovation ecosystems, especially in areas such as agriculture, biotechnology, artificial intelligence and etc.

“With the help of Iran, we want to provide an ecosystem of innovation and technology for the job creation and employment of youth. Defining joint technology projects between the two countries will help achieve this goal and put us on the path to development,” he further noted.

With the help of Iran, Uzbekistan wants to provide an ecosystem of innovation and technology to create jobs for the youth. Four technology parks have been established in Uzbekistan, he said, adding that his country is interested in cooperating with the Iranian technology parks to develop this ecosystem. “One of our most important priorities is to benefit from Iran’s experience in planting agricultural products in saline lands.”

Sattari also expressed Iran’s preparedness to provide indigenous and investment models of scientific development to Uzbekistan, especially in its priority areas such as agriculture, salinity, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, etc.

The agricultural industry is one of the most difficult industries for technology and innovation to penetrate into, and Iran, despite having many research centers in this field, has not yet achieved great success, he added, IRNA reported.

Iran’s technology and innovation ecosystem is designed based on the native unique climate characteristics. Iran faces a wide variety of climates and its innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem is completely indigenous and defined based on domestic needs.

Uzbekistan, for its scientific development, also needs to create an ecosystem that meets the scientific and indigenous needs, he explained.

Iran’s progress in artificial intelligence, biotechnology

Iran is in 13th place among the top countries in artificial intelligence by the total number of publications in 2021, according to the Nature Index database.

The SCImago ranking database at the University of Granada, Spain, ranks countries and universities based on the number of scholarly articles from higher education institutions in the Scopus database. This ranking uses three indicators of research, innovation, and society in combination.

In the 2020 version of SCImago, the subject of artificial intelligence is a subcategory of computer science, which ranks Iran as 15th in the world and first in West Asia.

Also, in cognitive sciences as a subset of psychology, which is one of the disciplines related to artificial intelligence, Iran ranks 36th in the world and third in West Asia.

In electrical and electronic engineering, which has a part of artificial intelligence, Iran is ranked 15th in the world and first in West Asia.

Biotechnology today is also widespread in all fields and is no longer limited to biomedical drugs; So it has replaced the injured limbs.

Nearly 800 knowledge-based companies in the country are currently operating in the field of biotechnology and supplying their products and services to the domestic market

Earlier in May, the Biotechnology Development Council launched 129 production projects with the aim of saving up to $1.44 billion of foreign currency.

Iran is ranked 12th in the world and first in West Asia in terms of biotechnology, as 9.5 percent of the income of knowledge-based companies and more than 60 percent of their exports are related to biotechnology.

Foreign exchange savings of $1 billion per year by producing 22 biopharmaceuticals, gaining the first rank in biotechnology products and vaccines in West Asia, and the presence among the top five biotechnology producers in Asia are among the country’s achievements, Mostafa Ghanei, secretary of the biotechnology development office of the Vice Presidency for Science and Technology, said in October 2020.

FB/MG