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Russia's AI blueprint emphasizes the development of 65 AI project products, which will be led by the country's main AI development partners in collaboration with friendly nations. Over 52% of large organizations are integrating AI into their operations, highlighting the increasing importance of AI in the country's economic landscape. The strategy anticipates that by 2025, AI could contribute up to 2% of Russia's GDP, with even conservative estimates, such as those from state-owned Sberbank, indicating a significant growth trajectory.
Deploying AI in key areas of the Russian economy is expected to bring improvements across multiple metrics, including speed, quality, personalization, and economic efficiency, potentially enhancing current levels by five to seven times.
Russia's AI strategy has several important objectives:
AI Project Products: Collaborate with domestic and international AI development partners to develop and implement 65 AI project products.
Economic Impact: Increase AI's contribution to Russia's GDP, estimated to reach 2% by 2025.
Efficiency and Quality: Implement AI in critical economic sectors to enhance planning, forecasting, and decision-making capabilities, achieving significant improvements in efficiency and quality.
Principled Development: Adhere to core principles, including protecting human rights, ensuring security, promoting transparency, maintaining technological sovereignty, integrating research with the real economy, practicing rational frugality, and supporting competition in the AI field.
National Goals: Align the strategy with national goals and the strategic objectives for Russia's development defined by the president by 2024.
End-to-End AI Applications: Promote widespread applications of AI technologies across various industries to enhance efficiency and enable new business activities.
Development of Autonomy: Prioritize domestic AI technologies and solutions to ensure technological sovereignty and independence.
Russia's broader national goals and strategic objectives drive its strategy, implementing cross-sectoral AI technologies to enhance planning, forecasting, and decision-making processes in various fields, such as equipment maintenance, supply chain optimization, manufacturing, and financial decisions.
Key Participants
The Russian government increasingly prioritizes the development of AI-assisted and AI-enabled technologies. Although AI development in Moscow lags far behind competitors like China and the US, the Russian government and military are making substantial investments to create the necessary human and physical infrastructure to promote national AI development and drive outcomes in both civilian and military platforms. However, these efforts are still in the early stages and primarily depend on the government's desire to expand discussions, dialogues, and facilitate cooperation between the growing high-tech private sector and the extensive military-academic infrastructure.
Most AI development activities in the Russian Federation originate from the government, particularly the Ministry of Defense (MOD), which has invested financial, human, and material resources into its technological, academic, and industrial AI development infrastructure. The government is also attempting to create high-tech innovation incentives to generate concrete AI outcomes. Given Russia's strong academic background in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), private sector AI development is also on the rise.
Private sector companies, organizations, academia, and the government participate in AI-related conferences, workshops, and roundtables (such as the 2018 Smart Systems Workshop on Information Warfare and workshops from the Russian AI Association), which facilitate knowledge discussions. Major Russian universities, including Moscow State University, the Higher School of Economics, and the Russian Academy of Sciences, have established AI laboratories. Other AI development efforts include "virtual actor" AI technologies developed by the National Research Nuclear University. Another example is a joint AI project between ITMO University and Far Eastern Federal University.
Furthermore, several national-level programs have been initiated to support high-tech development, including the National Technological Initiative, a nationwide program promoting high-tech innovation, including AI.
Russian government projects are overseen by the Ministry of Defense (MoD) and its affiliated agencies, such as the Advanced Research Foundation (ARF). Established in October 2012, ARF is similar to the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Its annual budget is approximately 4 billion rubles (about $60 million), and it operates 46 research laboratories and 15 "advanced" projects. ARF's portfolio currently includes efforts to develop intelligent systems that simulate human thought processes, analyze complex data, and assimilate new knowledge.
The Russian Academy of Sciences and ARF have called for the establishment of a National Artificial Intelligence Center to provide national priorities, assist in "creating scientific reserves, developing AI innovation infrastructure, and implementing theoretical research and promising projects in artificial intelligence and IT technologies."
Overall, the Russian private sector needs to adopt more infrastructure critical to Western high-tech achievements, such as the availability of venture capital, initial public offerings, and investment environments similar to those in the US and EU. Unlike in the US, Russia's startup culture is more conducive to technological breakthroughs in IT and software. Additionally, Russian civilian designers need more funding and support.
In the field of artificial intelligence, the role of non-state participants has also begun to increase, especially following the onset of the Russia-Ukraine war. In 2022, the Ukrainian television news outlet Ukraine 24 claimed its livestreaming and website were hacked; moreover, deepfake videos of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy calling for the surrender of Ukrainians began circulating online. Similarly, a deepfake video of Russian President Vladimir Putin urging his troops to lay down their arms and return home was widely shared on the X platform.
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