Sber, the Russian state-controlled financial and tech giant, is teaming up with Visa to launch “Russia’s first Data Lab.” The partners intend to “use anonymized data to track changes in customer behavior and design the most customized offerings for all users of card products by applying artificial intelligence and machine learning tools.”

“The move is aimed at making things even more convenient for our customers, further improving the high quality of our services. The opening of the Data Lab will morph familiar plastic and digital cards into irreplaceable assistants for people’s everyday financial transactions,” stated Alexander Vedyakhin, First Deputy Chairman of Sber’s Executive Board.

Not only will the lab study current customer behavior; it will also “make probabilistic hypotheses to stay ahead of customer expectations” with the support of “a unique R&D cluster,” Sber stated.

For AI research purposes, the Data Lab will use the Christofari supercomputer, which is part of the Sber infrastructure.