Investments in Artificial Intelligence provide threefold payback - Gref

MOSCOW. July 19 (Interfax) - Sberbank receives about $3 billion a year for every $1 billion invested in artificial intelligence technologies, German Gref, president and chairman of the board of the bank, said.

"Every year we invest about $1 billion in artificial intelligence technologies and every year, we get about $3 billion back," Gref said at a meeting of the supervisory board of Russia - the Land of Opportunities organization.

Sberbank has been investing "a lot" in this area for about 12-13 years, he said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said that this area has a huge scale. "All efforts that are aimed at achieving specific goals in this area, of course, must be supported," he said.

Putin asked Gref if artificial intelligence would ever replace him as head of Sberbank.

"I hope not in my lifetime, but everything is moving in that direction," Gref said.

In response, Putin joked that "progress is impossible with people [like Gref], and everything would slow down."

Sberbank plans to receive 350 billion rubles from the introduction of artificial intelligence technologies in 2023, Alexander Vedyakhin, the first deputy chairman of the board of the bank, said in June. In 2022, the bank earned 250 billion rubles from the introduction of these technologies.