Russia Wants AI Sovereignty. It Has a Chip Problem

“Katerina Vladimirovna,” she said, referring to the pale face, whose credential at the conference was managing director of a small research and development foundation, by her patronymic. “Your answer, please.”

“Talent is everything,” replied Vladimir Putin’s younger daughter, whose full name is Katerina Vladimirovna Tikhonova, knowingly or not echoing a 1935 address by Joseph Stalin. “Everything else is a consequence of talent.” The panelists were quick to agree. And yet, there are reasons to doubt that the talent that Russia is capable of developing is sufficient to overcome Russia’s structural weaknesses in AI. 

In recent months, Russian authorities and institutions have made a concerted push to develop homegrown AI talent. Vladimir Putin has established a Presidential Commission on AI and changed national curricula to emphasize the technology. Moscow State University, the nation’s most prestigious university, has established a new AI faculty, alongside an AI institute headed by Putin’s daughter. These moves seek to address the brain drain of top technical talent following the invasion of Ukraine by playing to a traditional Russian strength—upskilling members of a population of some 140 million people, which has historically seen success in the mathematical sciences. However, these moves do little to address Russia’s greatest weakness in AI: scarce access to indispensable hardware, due to limited domestic production capacity and stringent sanctions.