Funding for artificial intelligence in Russia will be reduced

Until 2030, the Russian government will invest about 24.6 billion rubles. in the development of artificial intelligence technologies in the Russian Federation, almost 100 billion rubles. for these purposes will be sent by Sberbank. This follows from the roadmap recently approved by the authorities.

According to the roadmap for the development of artificial intelligence in Russia, by 2024 the Russian AI market will grow to 14 billion rubles. – this estimate is at least ten times more modest than the forecast laid down in a similar program from 2019 (160 billion rubles). According to experts, even adjusted plans will not be easy to implement due to the lack of high-performance foreign equipment.

“After the introduction of sanctions, we identified AI products that need to be developed in Russia, worked out a number of measures to develop and scale them, and included all this in the updated roadmap,” the Ministry of Environmental Development added.

At the same time, judging by the document, the government has significantly reduced the estimated amount of funding for the development and implementation of AI technologies. According to the roadmap “Neurotechnologies and Artificial Intelligence”, approved in 2019, 56.8 billion rubles were allocated from the budget for the development of AI. until 2024. Over the next seven years – until 2030, according to the new concept, only 24.6 billion rubles will be spent for these purposes. extra-budgetary financing will also be reduced: from 334 billion rubles. until 2024 to 111 billion rubles. until 2030.

The document outlines four main directions for the development of AI technologies in Russia: natural language processing and speech synthesis, computer vision, promising methods of artificial intelligence, as well as intellectual decision support. Each involves conducting research, registering patents, financing start-ups and releasing finished products: new neural networks capable of writing texts, computer vision systems for unmanned vehicles and others. Their creation will be mainly handled by Sberbank: it will invest 99.7 billion rubles of its own funds in the development of AI solutions by 2030. The creation of AI systems will also be engaged in state institutions – the Ministry of Health, Moscow State University, the Ministry of Transport and others.

Recall that the Government of the Russian Federation, the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), Sberbank and the Platform of the National Technology Initiative (NTI) have already signed a cooperation agreement as part of the implementation of the roadmap for the development of artificial intelligence. In total, about 30 foundations, universities and authorities will be engaged in the implementation of projects within the framework of the roadmap.