Bloomberg Reveals Russia's Weak Spot In The AI Race

• 16.09.2026, 11:08

Moscow is facing a shortage of high-performance chips and computing resources.

Russia is actively implementing artificial intelligence, but its capabilities in this area fall far short of the Kremlin’s ambitions. Moscow has learned to use AI for warfare, surveillance, and propaganda; however, it will be extremely difficult for it to develop its own cutting-edge models, writes Bloomberg.

Russian companies are developing large language models such as Yandex’s Alice and Sberbank’s GigaChat. However, they are hardly used outside the country. According to Sberbank CEO Herman Gref, Russia lags significantly behind the U.S. and China.

Moscow is much more active in implementing applied technologies. AI is used for automated censorship, facial recognition, operating propaganda bots, and controlling attack drones in the war against Ukraine.
Russia’s main problem is not a lack of ambition, but a shortage of computing power and modern components. Sanctions have hindered access to Nvidia accelerators, and a significant portion of investments and specialists has been redirected to the military-industrial complex.

“Russia is unlikely to be able to create state-of-the-art models,” the Bloomberg authors write.

Instead, Moscow is increasingly turning to Chinese and Western models with open weights. At the same time, the Russian military is acquiring its own unique datasets thanks to the war against Ukraine. These can help improve military systems, but they do not solve the problem of a shortage of powerful chips and infrastructure.

The Kremlin’s AI policy is increasingly shaped by security agencies, primarily the FSB. Control and security have taken precedence over economic development.

“AI could be a powerful tool for achieving Putin’s goals, but it is not enough to realize his great-power ambitions,” notes Bloomberg.