Digital development minister predicts years of major changes in Russian telecoms industry

MOSCOW. Oct 8 (Interfax) - The Russian telecommunications industry will face major changes in terms of architecture and regulatory mechanisms in the coming years, including in connection with the introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media Minister Maksut Shadayev said.

"Overall, to sum up, it seems to me that telecoms have been developing very steadily and systematically all recent years. It is clear that there are shocks associated with the cessation of supplies, the replacement of foreign solutions with Russian ones. But it seems to me that we are now standing [on the threshold] in terms of a new architecture - that is, the coming years will see major changes, that's my feeling. Both regulatory, and infrastructural and technological [changes], and with the transition to artificial intelligence. So I think that telecoms will be shaken up quite dynamically," Shadayev said at the plenary session of the Digital Solutions forum at the Russia national center on Thursday.

He expressed hope that the full-scale production of equipment for deploying new-generation communication networks (5G) will be created in Russia.

"Colleagues [equipment manufacturers] are moving rapidly so far; indeed, time is very short, a gigantic leap needs to be made. Let me remind you, we had nothing of our own in 2022. And what we see now is [equipment for] LTE in commercial operation, [equipment for] 5G will already appear in October," Shadayev said.