The Nuclotron-based Ion Collider fAcility (NICA) is now under construction
at JINR (Dubna, Russia). A rich nomenclature of high intensity heavy ion beams in the energy
range $4<\sqrt{s_{NN}}<11$~GeV will become available by about 2020. The main physics goal
of the NICA project is the experimental exploration of the properties of high density
nuclear matter with an emphasis to the nature of the deconfinement phase transition, in-medium particle properties, and search for the QCD critical point. Two experiments: MPD and BM$@$N
are foreseen for study heavy-ion collisions in the collider mode and fixed target configuration, respectively. This report summarizes the current status of the accelerator and detector projects.