In the global AI boom, Russia is conspicuously absent

My latest column for the Financial Times

I wrote in the Financial Times today about Nebius—one of the new “neoclouds” offering AI-focused computing power to some of the world's biggest tech firms—and what it says about Russia’s (very small) role in the AI ecosystem. Here’s the piece:

In the global AI boom, Russia is conspicuously absent

Where is Russia in the AI race? The US and China aspire to artificial intelligence supremacy. The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are spending billions of dollars to position themselves as AI hubs. Governments from South Korea to Kazakhstan have issued strategies for sovereign AI programmes.

Russia boasts an enviable history of engineering talent. It has a native ecosystem of internet-era tech companies, from search engine Yandex to social media site VKontakte. The Telegram messenger service was created by Russian businessman Pavel Durov. Russian criminal entrepreneurs have been innovators in the sphere of ransomware and crypto heists. In 2017, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that whoever leads in AI will “rule the world”. Yet three years into a global AI boom, Russia is conspicuously absent.

It’s not because AI doesn’t matter to Russia. Its drone war with Ukraine relies on increasingly autonomous systems. AI-enabled drone “swarms” — aspirational at the start of the full-scale invasion — are now on the brink of being realised. Russia has smuggled thousands of chips, including high-end GPU processors, for AI-enabled drones. And yet, Russia remains a bit player in AI.

Just across the border in Finland, an alternative history of Russian tech is operating in a large data centre campus…

Read more in the FT here.