Neural network business: the AI market in Russia is growing faster than the rest of the IT sector

The artificial intelligence market in Russia is expanding almost twice as fast as the rest of the IT sector, but domestic developers are inferior to Western ones, experts told Izvestia. They explain this by the fact that high-tech players took up many developments later than foreign ones, and they have fewer resources to develop their products. Nevertheless, there are areas in which our programmers have made significant progress in recent years. What was discussed on the first day of the forum "Digital Industry of industrial Russia" — in the material of Izvestia.

Why is Russian AI lagging behind foreign developments

Artificial intelligence in our country is almost twice as fast as other sectors of the domestic IT industry in terms of growth rates. This was stated by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin at the plenary session of the forum "Digital Industry of Industrial Russia" in Nizhny Novgorod. According to him, more than half of domestic enterprises are implementing AI technologies.

In the main sectors of the economy, key management and production processes are already being implemented using domestic IT solutions, according to the presentation of the head of government. If in 2022 there were about 5 thousand non-import-substituted solutions, by 2025 their number has decreased to 1.5 thousand. Geological exploration, energy, oil and gas, petrochemicals and others are named among the leading industries in the implementation of IT products.

According to Mikhail Mishustin, computer-aided design and engineering calculations systems were already used in 56% of design organizations last year. And, for example, Russian resource management systems are already used by 72% of companies.

In general, according to the government, the costs of large and medium-sized businesses for digital transformation and the acquisition of domestic IT solutions are steadily increasing. In 2025, they amounted to almost 4 trillion rubles, compared to 2.3 trillion in 2022. At the same time, 82% of these funds went to launch domestic solutions (in 2022 — only 39%).

Despite the fact that AI in Russia is developing at a pace faster than many other areas of the IT industry, the country is still years behind in this segment, said Denis Kuskov, CEO of TelecomDaily. According to him, domestic developers began to engage in this field later than Western and Asian players and do not have comparable resources, which are possessed, for example, by large American companies. At the same time, according to the expert, the gap in the AI segment is less critical than in a number of other areas — in the development of mobile operating systems, where the gap with world leaders can reach almost a decade.

—AI is one of the fastest—growing technologies in the world, and we are not lagging behind in terms of development, given the limitations faced by Russian IT companies," said Sergey Golitsyn, head of the AI department at T1 IT Holding. — But the biggest problem is the inaccessible infrastructure, the equipment on which artificial intelligence works, in particular, the GPU. Today, their cost for Russia is quite high, and there are problems with their availability.

According to him, there are problems with personnel and the involvement of industries in the introduction of new technologies. The impetus for the introduction of AI was given by the use of Nvidia-free technologies (that is, the use of AI chips alternative to the American Nvidia). Cooperation with Asian manufacturers can help in this.

Also, in his opinion, the creation of industry competencies in the field of AI will help — for example, it is necessary to launch educational programs at universities that will increase the human resources potential for industries.

What kind of domestic software is missing for companies and government agencies

The Ministry of Finance believes that the process of import substitution of foreign software is actively underway, which is facilitated, among other things, by government support.

— On the one hand, it helps to accelerate the pace of the emergence of new in-demand IT solutions on the market. Tax preferences are provided for the IT sector (reduced insurance premium rates, income tax benefits). As part of the national Data Economy project, grants are being allocated to support startups, finalize and pilot projects already on the market," the department said.

On the other hand, measures are being implemented to stimulate demand for domestic software, according to the Ministry of Finance. Bans have been imposed on the purchase and use of foreign solutions for government agencies and state-owned companies, as well as on critical information infrastructure facilities. At the same time, customers implementing domestic software are subject to such tax benefits as a double coefficient when companies purchase Russian software, accelerated depreciation of domestic software and hardware and software complexes, and VAT exemption on transactions for the sale of rights to domestic software, the department said.

The level of use of Russian software in government agencies was almost 80%, the average level of use of Russian solutions in state-owned companies implementing digital transformation programs since 2021 exceeded 80%, the ministry added.

Vimpelcom is consistently developing the use of domestic software and open-source solutions in key technological and business processes, the company told Izvestia. For the telecom industry, this is a strategic direction related to both technological independence and the sustainability of critical infrastructure, they say.

— Most of the IT solutions in Beeline's IT landscape that are not foreign are already in the registry of domestic software. This includes proprietary solutions, such as the Vega virtualization platform and Corbis ASP. It is also worth noting the special place of domestic database management systems used in high—load solutions," Vimpelcom added.

Migration to Russian software is taking place at Rostelecom and its subsidiaries as intensively as possible, said Darius Khalilov, Deputy President and Chairman of the Management Board of the company.

— We have committed ourselves to complete the full transition of all solutions to Russian technologies by the end of 2027. Such a significant milestone has been achieved, as Rostelecom is the largest consumer and manufacturer of industrial application software. We can reasonably say that the security and protection against threats to our landscape has increased significantly over the past years thanks to these very events," he said.

So far, not only AI is lagging behind Western products in terms of development, but also other software that is used in industry, said NTI expert on new materials and technologies Evgeny Vishnevsky.

— The pace of import substitution in industrial software has really accelerated. Three years ago, most machine-building enterprises worked for ANSYS, CATIA, Siemens NX and SAP, and the dependence was not just licensed. The production logic was sewn into these platforms," he told Izvestia. — Today, according to the ERP layer (ERO-systems - enterprise resource management systems. The transition has indeed largely taken place — 1C:ERP, Parus and others are closing the basic management contours of most major players. 72% is a plausible figure, although you need to understand that ERP is the easiest to replace, it is the top floor, the business logic, not the engineering core.

According to him, the situation is more complicated with computer-aided engineering design (CAD) systems.

— If we talk about complex multidisciplinary calculations — gas dynamics, fatigue strength, electromagnetic fields — there are no Russian analogues of ANSYS Mechanical or Abaqus at the level of mass use in industry. The situation in neftegaz is more acute: geological reservoir modeling or calculation of pipeline systems still require either foreign software in gray schemes, or significant compromises in accuracy," the expert specified.

He added that lagging behind world leaders is systemic and has been measured for years: the United States and the EU have been accumulating verified calculation bases for a long time, while China has invested in the development of its own CAE platforms and is now able to cover 60-70% of engineering tasks within the country.

— Russia is still closer to the start in this race. There is progress, it should not be underestimated, but it is too early to call 56% of CAD coverage a victory," the expert noted.

There are areas in which Russian developers have made significant progress over the past five years, but there are still areas where there is still significant potential for development, said Leonid Konik, a partner at ComNews Research. According to him, one of the common problems is inertia and unwillingness of customers to switch to domestic software solutions.: This may be due to both the habit of using solutions that are already in use, and the unwillingness to re-invest in expensive software previously purchased from foreign developers.

— In order to switch to a Russian product, the customer must be confident not only of its quality, but also that the developer will exist for decades and support it. Unfortunately, over the past five years, it has already happened that the developer abandoned his solution, and the customer was left alone with his support and development," says Leonid Konik.

Russian software developers use foreign AI systems to create it, but the risks associated with artificial intelligence code generation have yet to be assessed: it is obvious that any program code created by a foreign AI model can potentially become available to the developer of this model, he said.

In the event of a code leak, according to Denis Kuskov, users may face hacking of systems, theft of data — for example, drawings or projects — as well as their deliberate destruction, which can jeopardize the results of the work of entire teams.