A Look Into Russian A.I.

(Sophia, one of Russia's more recent and prominent examples of their advancements in AI and robotics)

Due to governmental corruption and pervasive state security, Russia can be a very difficult place for innovation to thrive. A prime example of this occurred back in 2010 when former Prime Minister, Dmitry Medvedev, established the Skolkovo Technopark, which was essentially the Russian equivalent to Silicon Valley. It was created to spark innovation and to assist in creating technological breakthroughs in the country (Bateman, 2019). In just five years the Technopark has nearly 30000 people employed on a campus that was very similar to the Google Headquarters. However, due to corruption and almost no protection in private property, a majority of the leading contributors in innovation at the campus ended up leaving Russia to seek new opportunities in America and Europe.

Vladimir Putin recently announced back in February that the Russian government had plans to to implement an Artificial Intelligence strategy. This strategy was going to have a focus on the country's military advancements. The Russian government even created a competetion to develop breakthroughs in the AI field. It is very likely that, based off of what resulted from Skolkovo, this plan will not succeed. Security concerns in addition to the continuing corruption in the country are among many factors that will cause leading talent in the Russian artificial intelligence fields to look towards other countries to take their expertise to so they can better achieve their goals.

If Russia can't fix its political system and overt corruption problem, then it seems as if the country will never have the breakthroughs they wish to find in the artificial intelligence fields. It will never be up to par with other countries if it doesn't fix these problems and as a result, will continue to fall behind in this field as well as other advanced technologies.

You can read more about this here: https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2019/06/russias-quest-lead-world-ai-doomed/157663/