13 Apr 2023 20:12

Russia willing to share experience, best practices of AI implementation with African countries - Digital Economy organization

MOSCOW. April 13 (Interfax) - Russia is willing to share technologies for implementing AI with African countries, in terms of the experience of implementing both experimental legal regimes and best business cases, the deputy director for international cooperation at the Digital Economy autonomous non-profit organization, Andrei Filippov, said.

"We have rather extensive experience in implementing experimental legal regimes, including in the field of artificial intelligence, in data processing, and working with medical data - what is now considered cutting edge. And we know that a number of countries in Africa are also implementing similar projects, and a lot of attention is paid to them," Filippov said at the IT forum "Russia - Africa: Digital Technologies as a Driver of State Development and International Cooperation" on Thursday.

Along with participating in regulatory strategic sessions and sharing experience, it's also important to create best practices, to describe the business models themselves, and to share them, he said.

"Our organization has gained extensive experience in such cases. Now we are mainly dealing with industry cases - I mean the introduction of artificial intelligence [within] industry. We would happily share the emerging technologies, the results that they produce when implemented, and everything related to this," Filippov said.

The Digital Economy autonomous non-profit organization acts as a platform between businesses, technology companies, state bodies and the expert community for implementing various digitalization approaches and practices, he said. The organization is implementing the Digital Advancement of the Regions project in Russia, where business representatives and experts visit a region and elaborate plans and strategies for implementing modern digital technologies, including those based on the GosTech platform, jointly with representatives of local organizations.

"Since last year, this format has gone international, and we suggest that all interested countries, including in Africa, carry out international digital advancement, so that project initiatives can be set up jointly for implementation in these countries, in multilateral and bilateral formats," Filippov said.

Earlier on Thursday, Deputy Minister of Digital Development Dmitry Oguryayev said that the export of Russian IT and information services to African countries in January-September last year amounted to $8.1 million, and the value of imports reached $2.7 million. The ministry expects an increase in the trade turnover between Russia and African countries thanks to the expansion of cooperation.

Commenting on the level of digitalization in Russia, Oguryayev said that the share of socially important public services in electronic format already exceeds 99%, with a target of 65%, and the proportion of households provided with broadband Internet access now exceeds 85%. He said that the volume of investment in domestic IT solutions has already exceeded 500 billion rubles.

The Digital Economy autonomous non-profit organization was established by leading domestic high-tech companies to ensure a productive dialogue between businesses and the state in implementing the national program of the same name, alongside the Russian Presidential Executive Office and the government. The autonomous non-profit organization's supervisory board includes Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko, who chairs it, Minister of Economic Development Maxim Reshetnikov, and Minister of Digital Development Maksut Shadayev, as well as the management boards of private and large state companies.