Artificial intelligence will bestow influence on a par with nuclear technology to countries able to get ahead now, a top Russian AI executive said, giving them superiority this century.

Alexander Vedyakhin, first deputy CEO of Sberbank, which is evolving from a major lender into an AI-focused technology conglomerate, told Reuters it was an achievement that Russia ranks among seven countries with home-grown AI.

"AI is like a nuclear project. A new 'nuclear club' is emerging globally, where either you have your own national large language model (LLM) or you don't," Vedyakhin said in an interview at Russia's annual AI Journey event.

Russia must have at least two or three original AI models, not "retrained foreign models", for use in sensitive areas such as online public services, healthcare and education, he said.

"It is impossible to upload confidential information into a foreign model. It is simply prohibited. Doing so would lead to very unpleasant consequences," Vedyakhin said.

President Vladimir Putin said last week home-grown AI models were vital to preserving Russian sovereignty. Sberbank and tech firm Yandex are leading efforts to catch up with US and Chinese rivals.

Vedyakhin said Russia would struggle to match leaders in computing, especially due to Western sanctions limiting access to technology, and the gap was likely to grow.

AI CLUB MEMBERSHIP CLOSED

Vedyakhin said the US and China were ahead of the rest of the club, including Russia, by about six to nine months, and that membership was effectively closed.

"In this race, every day matters, but those who haven't started are falling behind the leaders by much more than a day with each passing day. For those who decide to join now, it will be extremely costly, almost impossible," he said.

"We appreciate what Chinese and American companies have done. We understand they have a strong head start with plenty of money, experts and computing power," Vedyakhin said.

Vedyakhin said Sberbank's GigaChat 2 MAX LLM was comparable to ChatGPT 4.0, while its new GigaChat Ultra Preview was on par with ChatGPT 5.0.

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Sberbank is preparing for competition with next-generation models and plans to make some of its latest models open source, including for commercial use.

RUSSIA IMMUNE TO 'AI BUBBLE RISK'

Russia will rely on programmers and mathematicians to cut costs and accelerate machine learning, Vedyakhin said, adding: "What we can't achieve with sheer numbers, we achieve with skill".

Still, AI development requires massive investment, he said, estimating Russia's power sector needs at 40 trillion roubles ($506 billion) for generation and 5 trillion for grids over the next 16 years.

A leap in LLM memory and the emergence of an AI architecture not based on generative pre-trained transformers (GPTs) could mark the next breakthrough, he said, similar to what China’s DeepSeek did in 2024.

Vedyakhin warned energy consumption levels make returns on AI investment "either very distant or not visible at all", cautioning against "overheated hype" on infrastructure spending.

"We believe that excessive investments in AI infrastructure may indeed fail to pay off, given the rapid pace of technological development," he said, adding Russia was immune to an "AI bubble" because its investment was not excessive.