New digital solutions and mechanisms have added roughly one trillion rubles to GDP, Mikhail Mishustin has said

The Russian economy outpaced its European peers in terms of growth last year, expanding by 4%, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin stated on Friday, citing the latest calculations. He said the main driver behind the above-average growth was the rapid introduction of digital technologies within a broad range of economic sectors.

“The economic effect [from the introduction of artificial intelligence technologies] is about one trillion rubles ($11 billion), and by the end of the decade it will top ten trillion,” Mishustin said at a plenary session of the Digital Almaty 2024 forum in Kazakhstan, adding that this would eventually add some 6% to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).

According to the prime minister, the scope of AI technologies application in economic and administrative sectors has increased by an average of 1.5 times over the past two years, and he expects that trend to continue.

“As for digital solutions, we continue to work on their implementation in all areas, including those based on artificial intelligence… We are developing digital transportation corridors and using information platforms. And there are more and more such projects. We are taking global trends into account – they help us respond to very difficult internal and external challenges,” Mishustin stated.

He noted that Russia is currently among the top-three countries “with serious competencies” in digital technologies, adding that it is open to sharing its experience and developments in the sphere with foreign partners.

“We are now focused on further development – the launch of large projects in technological sovereignty, so-called megaprojects, as well as improving the training of engineering teams and the introduction of new digital technologies,” Mishustin explained.

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The prime minister said digital megaprojects would help increase production in a number of priority areas, ranging from machine tool manufacturing and aircraft building to pharmaceuticals and the radio-electronic industry.

In addition, he noted that Russia was building a network of world-class campuses to train IT specialists and which will be open to specialists from both Russia and its partners within the EEU bloc of post-Soviet nations. There are currently 17 such campuses, and it is planned to open eight more by 2030.

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