Putin Unveils Global AI Initiative, Citing Russian Advantages and Need for Cooperation

Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced plans to deepen international cooperation on artificial intelligence, unveiling a new global initiative aimed at developing AI systems and shared computing infrastructure. Speaking on Thursday at the Eurasian Economic Forum in Astana, Kazakhstan, Putin said Russia has helped establish an AI alliance bringing together scientific, academic and business communities from multiple countries. He also proposed holding a high-level international meeting on artificial intelligence in Russia next year. According to Putin, the gathering will focus on cooperation in developing sovereign AI models, creating interconnected computing and energy infrastructure, and adapting AI technologies to local needs. AI has emerged as a crucial factor in “ensuring global competitiveness, economic growth, progress,” and countries and transnational corporations are already competing for primacy in the field, he said. Putin argued that Russia possessed several advantages in the field, including scientific expertise, a strong education system, and abundant energy resources needed to support large-scale computing systems and data centers. “The development of artificial intelligence requires enormous energy consumption,” Putin said, pointing to Russia’s nuclear generation capabilities, hydroelectric power and traditional energy sources. He also stressed the importance of maintaining sovereign technological platforms, saying Russia was among the few countries capable of independently developing its own AI systems and financing large-scale projects in the sector. At the same time, Putin called for closer international cooperation, arguing that pooling resources and expertise could deliver significant economic and technological benefits. The Russian leader warned that AI would fundamentally reshape labor markets, with millions of people potentially forced to change professions as automation increasingly replaces human workers. “Such processes are irreversible and inevitable,” he said. Several major Russian companies are already developing domestic AI models, including tech giant Yandex and the country’s largest bank, Sberbank. According to TASS, Yandex’s B2B Tech division recently unveiled Alice AI LLM Flash, a large language model optimized for high-speed dialogue and data analysis. Citing a company source, the outlet reported on Thursday that the model outperformed OpenAI’s GPT-5.4 mini in 56% of business-related benchmark tasks.