Artificial intelligence is not moving away from the import base

The government has developed a number of measures to combat the lack of computing power for the development of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. Yesterday, at a specialized strategic session in the White House, the head of the Ministry of Economy, Maxim Reshetnikov, spoke about plans to launch preferential lending for purchases, including imported components for supercomputers, as well as provide discounts on electricity for necessary computing projects. The Russian AI solutions created as a result of this are supposed to be exported to the “friendly” countries of the EAEU, SCO and BRICS, but it is always easier to start state support for the industry than to curtail it without losing competitiveness.

Mikhail Mishustin held a strategic session on the development of AI yesterday at the Government Coordination Center. According to him, the White House will allocate 5.2 billion rubles for the development of this digital technology in 2024. In addition, the government will prepare an updated National Strategy in the field of AI until 2030 (the current one was developed back in pre-war 2019). According to the prime minister, the implementation of the updated plans will ensure the growth of computing power and the launch of venture financing at the middle stage of project implementation, as well as the removal of regulatory barriers.

At the same time, it is the lack of computing power, as the Ministry of Economy believes, that is the primary problem for the development of AI. To solve this problem, the Ministry of Economy and the Ministry of Digital Development have developed a number of special measures. “We propose to launch a soft loan at the investment stage for the purchase of components for supercomputers. When moving to the operating phase, reduce the financial burden on the business through accelerated depreciation on equipment,” said the head of the Ministry of Economy, Maxim Reshetnikov. As noted in the Ministry of Economy’s certificate for the strategic session, preferential loans can be extended to the purchase of imported components. Another proposal is to introduce a preferential tariff for electricity during the transition to the operational phase of AI projects, for which the Ministry of Energy will create a register of computing capacities, and the Ministry of Digital Development will determine which of them should receive preferences.

It should be noted that the Ministry of Industry and Trade is simultaneously addressing the issues of providing developers with chips and organizing their own production, but this is too long-term a program, and experts differ in their assessments of the likelihood of success. Moreover, after the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine, foreign processor manufacturers began to limit supplies to the Russian Federation, including Intel, AMD and others. Taiwanese TSMC, a key partner of domestic microelectronics design centers, also refused to work with Russia. According to market participants, it will not be possible to completely replace American chips with analogues (see Kommersant, March 16).

At the same time, as Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko noted following the event, about 5 thousand organizations now need support and preferential access to computing power for the development of AI. According to Maxim Reshetnikov, the measures will allow specialists to create at least three general and ten sectoral large fundamental models. The minister proposes to promote all created digital solutions to the markets of friendly countries – relevant bilateral negotiations are being held with the countries of the EAEU, SCO, and BRICS.

Let us note that, de facto, the White House proposes to subsidize the AI ​​industry that is important to it (see Kommersant, June 19). However, such state support carries with it the risks of the sector becoming dependent on subsidies and losing competitiveness if they are cancelled. The state has experience in solving the problem: after the industrial policy reform in 2018, only industries that were competitive in foreign markets received support, and only in exchange for increasing exports (which forced them, among other things, to compete with foreign manufacturers on price), but after the start of the war operations of the Russian Federation in Ukraine, as the Russian economy self-isolates, the Ministry of Industry and Trade is increasingly ready to deviate from this principle in order to ensure that current problems are solved with budgetary injections.

Venera Petrova, Oleg Sapozhkov