Digital Twenty – Newspaper Kommersant No. 9 (7454) dated 01/19/2023

At the end of 2021-2022, Russia took 14th place in the rating of countries prepared by Rostelecom in terms of the level of technological development. The leaders are China, the USA and India. The Russian Federation is in the top 10 countries in terms of scientific and inventive activity in the field of robotics and quantum technologies. Russia is also in the top ten in terms of inventive activity in the field of artificial intelligence. For the development of this technology, chosen by the Russian authorities as one of the priorities, 25 billion rubles will be spent from the budget until 2030 alone.

According to the results of the fifth annual monitoring of digitalization trends from Rostelecom, presented on Wednesday, the Russian Federation took 14th place in the ranking of countries in terms of technological development. Neighbors are Brazil (13th) and the Netherlands (15th). Top 5 were China, USA, India, UK and Canada. Also in the top ten are Australia, Japan, South Korea, France and Spain.

The rating is determined by three indicators: scientific publications, patents and investments in the field of digital technologies. According to its results, Russia entered the top 10 countries in terms of scientific activity, being among the leaders in scientific and inventive activity in robotics and quantum technologies, and in inventive activity in the field of AI. “For all the years that we have been making these ratings, Russia has been confidently in the top twenty, and in a number of technologies it is also in the top 10,” emphasized Boris Glazkov, vice president of Rostelecom, during the presentation of the study. It should be noted that China is ahead of the United States in the ranking of technological development in scientific articles (348.7 thousand in 2021 against 226.9 thousand) and patents (648.9 thousand against 93 thousand). The United States retains its leadership in terms of investment ($2.1 billion versus $187.3 million).

In the context of not countries, but technologies, according to the integral indicator (taking into account the number of scientific publications, patents and investment volumes), the field of artificial intelligence is leading (integral weight 3.08). In second place is alternative energy (2.09), in third place is mobile networks (1.89). The fourth and fifth lines of trends were occupied by digital health (1.87) and cancer research (1.35), respectively.

AI has topped the list of technology trends for the fourth year in a row, according to the study. In 2021, investment activity in this market increased significantly – the volume of transactions worth more than $1 billion doubled compared to 2020 (the volume of investments amounted to $178.2 billion). Significant money for AI is also allocated in the Russian Federation. According to the “road map” “Development of the high-tech direction “Artificial Intelligence” for the period up to 2030″, approved by the Ministry of Economy at the end of December 2022, the government will allocate 24.6 billion rubles. for the development of AI technologies, about another 100 billion rubles. Sberbank will invest in this area (see Kommersant dated January 18).

However, as follows from the Rostelecom rating, the leader among technologies in terms of investment in the world is still not AI, but digital healthcare ($722.3 billion in 2021). “In this direction, not only the volume of venture investments has grown, but also the number and volume of mergers and acquisitions (M&A),” the presentation for the study says. Note that yesterday, the analytical company Gartner presented a forecast according to which global spending on information technology in 2023 will increase by 2.4% to $4.5 trillion.

Venera Petrova