Alexandr Khanin

Alexandr Khanin is a UAE-based tech entrepreneur and applied AI expert with nearly two decades of experience in artificial intelligence, robotics, and startup ecosystems.

Prior to joining MBZUAI, he was the Founder of VisionLabs.ai, a leading computer vision and biometrics startup whose technologies - recognized by NIST as top performers - have been deployed globally across public safety, identity verification, and contactless access. In 2021, the company was acquired for $100 million. Alexandr holds a Master’s degree with honors from Bauman Moscow State Technical University, where his research focused on multimodal data fusion for autonomous robot navigation. He is a winner of the Intel Technology to Market Accelerator (UC Berkeley), MassChallenge Boston, and ChallengeUp! by T-Mobile, Cisco, and Intel. Following the acquisition, Alexandr served as VP of AI at a major telecom group, where he led the expansion of AI capabilities into new modalities including voice and text analytics. He is currently the Founder and Director of Polynome Group, a provider of advanced AI solutions for public and private sector entities in the UAE. He is also the organizer of the “Machines Can See” AI summit-the largest professional AI event in MENA-and led the successful bid to bring ICCV 2029 to the UAE.