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Prior to the plenary session, Vladimir Putin toured an exhibition of Russian companies’ achievements in artificial intelligence. The display featured a range of innovations, including the first Russian anthropomorphic robot developed by Sberbank, a suite of intelligent assistants based on the GigaChat large language model, and the Alice AI generative model from Yandex.

The President was also briefed on the application of artificial intelligence across various sectors, such as industry, sports, and healthcare, including the AI-assisted development of pharmaceutical drugs.

During his tour of the exhibition, Vladimir Putin was accompanied by Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office Maxim Oreshkin, Minister of Digital Development, Communications, and Mass Media Maksut Shadayev, and President and Chairman of the Executive Board of Sberbank German Gref.

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The 10^th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence Journey 2025

Chairman of the Management Board and CEO of Sberbank German Gref: Mr President, this year marks the tenth anniversary of the AI Journey conference. I would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart for regularly participating in it and supporting the advanced technology and the high-tech sector in our country.

Allow me to give you the floor.

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Thank you very much.

Today’s events are titled “Artificial Intelligence Journey.” Mr Gref has just taken me on such a journey. How long did it last? Three hours? Two and a half? We apologise for making you spend this time discussing the agenda. Anyway, I am genuinely pleased to welcome to Sber’s headquarters all AI Journey conference participants, as well as wide audiences from around the world which, I believe, are joining us online. As is customary, I will share with you what Russia is working on and discuss new steps to create and apply advanced technologies, including as part of international interaction.

Since this conference marks its tenth anniversary, I would like to thank Sber’s Chairman of the Management Board Mr Gref, as well as the Russian Artificial Intelligence Alliance, for your persistent efforts to promote the values of progress and to bring together the efforts of the state, business, and science in order to accomplish the technological development objectives.

You have heard me say it many times before that it is important to not only appreciate the importance of what we are doing, but also to keep moving forward even after achieving intermediate results. We should strive to bring our joint work to a whole new level in order to match the pace and the daunting scale of ongoing changes.

At previous conferences, we discussed in detail generative AI and language models trained on vast amounts of data, including texts and images. Just a short two years ago, such systems could tackle fairly simple tasks, but today generative AI is being used to create intelligent assistants known as AI agents, as well as self-driving vehicles and robots.

Importantly, they are not just following predefined algorithms; but are capable of making increasingly autonomous decisions without human input. Those who possess and apply such products gain significant advantages in efficiency and productivity.

Clearly, generative AI technology is becoming core and strategic technology. Major companies and leading countries are vying to develop proprietary fundamental language models.

According to various estimations, the development of artificial intelligence may be one of the largest technological projects in human history. Meanwhile, the primary focus of investment is on expanding computing power and generating additional gigawatts of energy: resources essential for the reliable functioning of the rapidly growing digital infrastructure. This energy is required to train the next generations of even more efficient generative AI systems. As I have already noted, electricity consumption by data centres will more than triple in this decade alone.

Alongside rapid transformations across all sectors, the number of users of generative artificial intelligence tools is steadily increasing. In Russia, the vast majority of young people are already actively employing neural networks and language models for tasks related to their studies, jobs, and daily lives.

But something else is equally important. These models generate enormous volumes of new data and are becoming one of the key instruments for information dissemination. As such, they have the capacity to influence people’s values and worldviews, shaping the semantic environment of entire nations and, ultimately, humanity as a whole.

We cannot allow critical dependence on foreign systems. For Russia, this is a question of state, technological, and, one could say, value sovereignty. Therefore, our country must possess a complete range of its own generative artificial intelligence technologies and products.

First and foremost, this includes national language models: both fundamental and smaller, industry-specific ones. The entire spectrum of such models must be trained and fully overseen by Russian specialists at every stage, including the quality assurance of the final product.

Work on these complex systems should become a significant driver for strengthening the national engineering school in this crucial domain. We must develop unique competencies across the full cycle of creating fundamental language models: from their initial development and training to their adaptation for the needs of various industries. In fact, all countries seeking leadership, independence, and sovereignty in this field are following the same path.

Second, a key direction, encompasses the entire infrastructure required for the development and implementation of such national products, specifically the electronic component base, data processing centres, and computing capacities with a stable energy supply.

The tasks to which I am referring are complex and carry significant responsibility – we all understand and acknowledge this perfectly well. We will address them in collaboration with domestic companies. In this context, I would highlight that the products of Sber and Yandex are ranked among the best in the world. During the upcoming Direct Line at the end of this year, we will once again utilise Sber’s language model, which has already demonstrated its effectiveness in analysing and systematising the vast volume of public appeals.

Let me reiterate: it is not merely the presence of our own technologies that is important. What is crucial is ensuring their widespread practical application. We must achieve their comprehensive introduction in industry, transport, healthcare, public administration, and other sectors. On this subject, I would like to elaborate in slightly greater detail.

The National Strategy for the Development of Artificial Intelligence sets the objective that by 2030, the aggregate contribution of this critical technology to the country’s GDP must exceed 11 trillion rubles. To advance this objective, I ask the Government and regional heads to formulate a national plan for the implementation of generative artificial intelligence at the national level, as well as across industries and regions of the country.

Earlier this morning, the Prime Minister and I discussed this subject. He reminded me that the Government has already established an Analytical Centre on this matter, which is currently operational with a team of 50 individuals. Officially, the Ministry of Digital Development oversees this work. However, neither one nor the other is sufficient. This is no longer adequate; we need a real operational headquarters to lead this sector, if we want this work to proceed confidently and proactively across all the aforementioned directions – that is, across industries, regions, ministries, and agencies. We need a headquarters capable of setting tangible tasks, ensuring execution, and monitoring results.

This analytical group is highly commendable, but it lacks administrative resource. That is what is absent – administrative resource is needed. Therefore, I ask the Presidential Executive Office and the Government – the Minister and the Government as a whole – to consider how we should establish this very headquarters to lead not just the sector but this entire endeavour, leveraging the capabilities of all those who are either already interested or do not yet realise they should be interested. Together, we must make this clear.

I emphasise that the implementation of this plan will become a crucial tool for generating demand for national fundamental models, effectively forming an entire market for the application of generative artificial intelligence systems.

Products developed on the basis of this plan must be integrated across all key industries by 2030. This includes solutions such as intelligent personal assistants and AI agents, which should be employed in the majority of management and production processes.

By March 2026, the Government, ministries, and agencies must provide comprehensive information on the use of artificial intelligence in the economy, the social sphere, and the regions of the Russian Federation. The pace of introducing these technologies in the regions should become a key indicator in the annual digital transformation ranking. I would like to request that this ranking be compiled using the updated methodology as early as the end of next year, 2026.

In this regard, I would like to appeal to the heads of ministries and agencies, as well as to regional leaders. This is not about preparing reports, but about achieving concrete results. You must clearly understand the demand for innovation coming from companies and enterprises, maintain permanent contact with scientists and engineers, and create conditions for testing and practical application of advanced technologies. Such successful experience is presented in the demonstration area of our conference. I believe it is useful, and if anyone has not yet visited it, I recommend doing so.

What is crucial is that we must create a market for the practical application of artificial intelligence technologies. My colleagues and I have just been discussing this, and they have been telling me how this sector is developing. In principle, the situation is similar to that in any other sector, but we now have the opportunity, whether fortunately or unfortunately, to build this market almost from scratch. This requires establishing certain standards across various areas of activity and ensuring that users of artificial intelligence technologies pay for these services, thereby creating a financial base for further development. We need to get this process going and give it an impetus for development.

I would also like to note that there are already tangible examples of how the experience of one Russian region in applying artificial intelligence is becoming the foundation for transformations across the entire country. For example, nearly two thousand medical organisations from more than 70 regions have joined the Moscow digital healthcare platform. This system has provided doctors from various cities and towns with access to artificial intelligence algorithms for the automatic analysis of medical images and radiological examinations.

Administrative and legal barriers that hinder both the creation and the implementation of sovereign, domestic technologies must be lifted more rapidly. Let me remind you in this context that in a number of countries, attempts to impose overly strict regulation on artificial intelligence have slowed down the development of new products and ideas. Let me repeat: we must not follow this path and repeat other countries’ mistakes. At the same time, we must bear in mind that there are certain areas of activity, such as public administration, the work of special services and law enforcement agencies, where we must rely exclusively on our own domestic developments.

Naturally, all of this must be done in direct dialogue with the tech businesses. We must thoroughly and substantively discuss the most bold and innovative regulatory and legislative initiatives that may, at first glance, fall outside conventional approaches. If necessary, they should be tested within experimental legal regimes. Such regimes are already in effect in Moscow and Sakhalin, as well as in a number of other regions of the Russian Federation, and will soon be extended to one-third of Russia’s territory: namely, the entire Far East. And, of course, we must make wider use of so-called “soft law.” I am referring primarily to the Code of Ethics in Artificial Intelligence.

Furthermore, as I have already noted today, in order to augment the potential of domestic generative artificial intelligence technologies and train our own language models, we must ensure the stability and independence of the national digital infrastructure. This will, among other things, allow us to guarantee data sovereignty, so that user information remains within the borders of Russia.

In this regard, I propose working with the business community to implement a programme for the development of data processing centres for artificial intelligence needs and to ensure that start-ups, scientific organisations, and technology companies have easy access to these centres.

The development of such data centres is intended to serve as a catalyst for the emergence of new enterprises and companies, as well as for job creation in promising sectors. This includes the domestic electronics industry, the deployment of production of components and spare parts, and the development of software and engineering systems for data processing centres.

The most critical and fundamental task is to ensure a constant, stable, and reliable energy supply for data centres. Consequently, plans for their placement must be clearly aligned with the further development of our national energy infrastructure as a whole, which includes advanced, modern, environmentally clean coal generation and other clean energy sources, such as nuclear. This is our strategic asset and competitive advantage.

We have just discussed this with experts, and it transpires that the mere availability of energy sources is insufficient. Powerful, constant energy sources are required to address specific tasks, while for the rapid utilisation of processed and refined data, energy sources must be located close to the consumers of the deliverables. This is a serious challenge, but it is one we are equipped to overcome, as we are perhaps the only country in the world currently capable of, ready for, and already producing and utilising small nuclear power plants.

Thus, in Kuzbass, for instance, coal generation can be utilised, while certain tasks can be conducted at our large hydroelectric power stations. In locations with large nuclear units, specific research and preparation can be carried out. However, to guarantee the rapid delivery of necessary information – with timeframes, as I have just been informed, measured in seconds and fractions of a second – and to ensure operational efficiency, small nuclear power plants can also be deployed. The imperative is to execute this swiftly.

We possess unique solutions that can be utilised for powering data processing centres. We plan to transition to the serial production of small floating and land-based nuclear stations, as well as to continue the construction of data processing centres at the largest nuclear power plants. We are ready to offer such comprehensive products to our international partners as well.

Looking ahead, within less than two decades, we intend to build 38 nuclear power units, primarily in the Urals, Siberia, and the Far East. Their combined capacity will be practically equivalent to that of the entire current nuclear generation. The growing potential of our domestic nuclear energy sector will enable us to consistently expand the computational capabilities required for artificial intelligence.

Friends,

I would like to address international cooperation separately. We will establish a joint framework with our partners in the field of artificial intelligence. This work will be conducted both on the basis of bilateral agreements and within integration associations such as the EAEU, BRICS, the SCO, and other formats. Furthermore, we propose to actively pursue the harmonisation of our nations’ legislation regarding the implementation of artificial intelligence, utilising the best practices accumulated in this area within the BRICS platform.

Naturally, we intend to jointly implement research projects. In this domain, we already have tangible examples of cooperation. For instance, at the initiative of the International Alliance for Artificial Intelligence established last year, a profound scientific discussion is now underway about how artificial intelligence technologies will evolve in the coming decade and what impact they will have on industry, transport, and other sectors, as well as on people, families, society as a whole, and social processes. I instruct the Government to ensure that the results of this forecast are applied in practice to update and fine-tune our plans for the development of economic sectors and the social sphere.

Meanwhile, it is evident that digital progress will gain strength and momentum. In the foreseeable future, technologies that surpass the capabilities of existing systems will undoubtedly emerge, and this will happen very quickly; I am referring to generative artificial intelligence, among other things. I am convinced that the younger generation of our scientists and engineers will make a significant contribution to addressing these highly complex research and development challenges.

I am aware that Russian school and university students – winners and prize-winners of international artificial intelligence tournaments – are present in this hall today. Let us welcome them together.

Friends, I wish you every success in your future endeavours, and I wish the participants of the AI Journey conference meaningful and fruitful deliberations.

Thank you for your attention.

To be continued.