Article Source: TMTPOST

Author: Lin Zhijia

Editor: Ma Jinman

Currently, Russia has invested billions of dollars in the world AI competition to counter the dominant position of the United States in this field, hoping to build Russia into an AI powerhouse. However, Russia still faces obstacles such as the Russia-Ukraine war and Western sanctions.

Image Source: Generated by Wujie AI

With artificial intelligence (AI) becoming a new national strategic resource after oil and semiconductors, despite facing severe economic sanctions from the West, Putin still intends to strengthen Russia's AI industry layout.

According to the TMTPOST App on November 27th, as reported by the Global Times and others, at the "2023 AI Journey" conference in Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that in the near future, he will sign a presidential decree approving Russia's new AI development strategy. This document will make a series of significant modifications, specifying goals and tasks, and will involve expanding basic and applied research in the field of generative AI and large language models.

Putin warned that this new AI strategy is aimed at countering the monopoly of AI technology by the United States and other Western countries. Some Western search engines and AI generative models "often work in a very selective and biased manner," and they do not consider Russian culture. The monopoly and dominance of these (Western) foreign systems in Russia are unacceptable, dangerous, and not allowed.

Putin emphasized that although new technologies sometimes bring disturbing ethical, moral, and social issues, and there are even voices suggesting a suspension of further research on generative AI, attempting to ban the development of AI is not feasible.

Once approved for implementation, this will be Russia's first national development strategy for generative AI technology.

It is worth mentioning that during this period, Putin also visited an exhibition of AI products. When he learned that Google's neural network in the United States had analyzed and determined that photos of the American moon landing mission contained false content based on multiple indicators, and that the photos of the American moon landing were fake, while there were no particular doubts about the photos of the Chinese lunar rover, Putin found this conclusion "interesting."

In fact, with the vigorous development of AI technology and the emergence of generative AI such as ChatGPT, more and more views believe that the iterative innovation of AI will lead the fourth industrial revolution of the 21st century. According to publicly available information, China and the United States are leading the development of AI research in the world, while European countries, India, Russia, Israel, South Korea, Japan, and others are in the second tier.

Currently, Russia has invested billions of dollars in the world AI competition to counter the dominant position of the United States in this field, hoping to make Russia an "AI powerhouse."

According to China News Network, as early as October 2019, Putin signed an order approving the national AI development strategy by 2030 to promote Russia's development in the field of artificial intelligence.

In September of this year, Putin instructed the Russian government to approve the national project to build a "data economy" by July 1, 2024, before 2030. The project should specify data collection, including the use of sensors based on quantum sensors, data transmission, and the development of a new generation of communication systems, using domestic equipment, technology, and software to create computing and data storage infrastructure, ensuring data security, including the use of quantum encryption technology. Within the framework of the national project, tools must be provided to fully support the development of the digital economy, AI, quantum computing, and communication, as well as basic research in the field of computing technology.

In addition, the Russian government also instructed the Ministry of Digital Development to create an AI platform based on "GosTech" for government agencies, which will not only connect the power grid with data analysis and preferential conditions but also support the development of the national data economy industry.

At the AI conference, Putin stated that the new national AI development strategy of Russia will be approved. He proposed that the government and corporate alliances should pay attention to ensure that the computing power of Russia's supercomputers should be at least doubled for the further development of generative AI. He hopes to ensure that Russian scientists can access the existing and under-construction supercomputers in Russia and provide special preferential policies for university students engaged in research and practical activities in the field of AI to use computing infrastructure.

As for the "Russian version of AI solutions" mentioned earlier, Putin believes that it is necessary for Russian government agencies, libraries, and archives to provide machine learning with free language data. "Our domestic AI models should reflect the richness and diversity of world cultures, heritage, knowledge, and all the wisdom of world civilizations," he said. "Our traditional values, rich and beautiful Russian language, and the languages of other Russian ethnic groups should be the basis for our development."

However, despite Putin's ambition to build Russia into an AI powerhouse, the country still faces obstacles such as the Russia-Ukraine war and Western sanctions. So, as Russia plans to develop AI technology, specifically, what new challenges will Putin face?

First, after the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, a large number of talented Russian technical personnel left Russia to avoid conscription. Therefore, many talented scientists leaving Russia has become the primary challenge that Putin currently faces.

For example, one of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry winners in 2023, Russian scientist Alexey Ekimov, is currently working in the United States, and the top Russian rocket scientist Vitaly Melnikov, aged 77, died earlier due to mistakenly eating poisonous mushrooms. Therefore, if Putin wants to develop AI technology, it is crucial to establish a long-term mechanism for scientists to conduct research in Russia and to cultivate scientists in the long term.

At the international conference of the AI Journey, Putin stated that Russia should vigorously expand the training of talents in the field of AI, especially by increasing the enrollment of master's students in universities with high-quality faculty in relevant fields, and by increasing the enrollment rate of basic AI courses for undergraduate students through the federal budget. In addition, the government is considering allocating more funds for the research and development of generative AI and large models and seeking industry investment to form new markets and services.

"We should vigorously train the most capable researchers. This task should be entrusted to the leaders of higher education institutions with the highest quality of AI field expert training. These are the Higher School of Economics, the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, the National Universities of Moscow and St. Petersburg, and the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology," Putin said.

Second, severe sanctions from the United States and other Western countries severely hinder Russia's import of high-tech products, resulting in a severe lack of resources and funds for the Putin government.

"Humanity has established corresponding rules for the use of nuclear technology, including in military and non-proliferation fields. Rules have also been proposed for the non-proliferation of nuclear technology carriers. If humans can establish rules, it means that in the field of AI, we can fully propose common solutions that everyone can accept and everyone needs," Putin said. Western countries should not prevent Russia from developing high-tech technologies such as AI. The future technological world should be multipolar and must be jointly built on the basis of trust and mutually beneficial cooperation.

The final major challenge is that Russia is not part of the global AI governance system.

At the first AI Security Summit held in the UK in early November, representatives from nearly 30 countries and regions, including the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, China, India, as well as representatives from international organizations and research institutions, AI experts, and industry leaders engaged in interdisciplinary dialogue and discussions on the types of risks brought by cutting-edge AI, the roles of different stakeholders in addressing these risks, and significant development opportunities for AI in different fields.

At this summit, the "Breachley Declaration" issued by various countries pointed out that many of the risks of AI are essentially international, so it is "best to be addressed through international cooperation." The participating countries and regions agreed to work together to create an "internationally inclusive" cutting-edge AI security scientific research network to deepen the understanding of AI risks and capabilities that are not yet fully understood. Meanwhile, China also proposed the "Global AI Governance Initiative" and held bilateral talks with relevant countries.

On November 26th, it was reported that 18 countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Poland, Australia, Chile, Israel, Nigeria, and Singapore are about to announce the first detailed international agreement on how to protect AI from rogue behavior. Companies designing and using AI need to develop and deploy in a way that ensures customers and the public are protected from abuse, urging companies to create "securely designed" AI systems.

This means that whether it is future AI governance or global AI cooperation and development, Russia is not on this list of countries. Therefore, it becomes important for Putin to form a new discourse on AI development.

At the conference, Putin said, "I propose that next year, during Russia's assumption of the rotating chairmanship of the BRICS, we discuss these (Russia's experience in the field of AI) in detail." He believes that as the organizer of this event under the framework of BRICS, Russia is capable of doing this and believes that colleagues will support it.

Maxim Shadaev, head of the Federal Ministry of Digital Development, Communications, and Mass Media (Ministry of Digital Development), has pointed out that large platform solutions, artificial intelligence (AI), and information security will become the main trends in Russia's digital future in the coming years. He believes that the second major trend in Russia is artificial intelligence, as AI has become an indispensable part of the country's digitalization.

Putin stated that in recent years, Russia's economic and social sectors have vigorously developed AI technology. For example, the Russian natural gas industry, Gazprom, has been able to significantly reduce the cost of oil well development using AI technology.

Experts from the Russian Academy of Sciences pointed out that the biggest problem with AI at present is that it may be difficult for humans to control it in the future, and AI may also decide many aspects of human life. As AI technology becomes a new strategic resource in global technological competition, under "de-globalization," the security risks of AI increase. Russia should promote the controllable, safe, effective, and unified development of domestic AI technology to better advance the 2030 development strategy of Russia as an AI powerhouse.

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