Russia's Sberbank offers AI model to Global South states keen to bridge digital divide
Key takeaways
- Russia lags the U.S. and China in the global AI race, and Sberbank and Russian IT giant Yandex are working to catch up with their flagship models, GigaChat and YandexGPT.
- "There is significant demand for this from countries of the Global South and those that want to develop sovereign AI but cannot afford it," he said, referring to states in Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Oceania.
- Vedyakhin said that AI was developing towards more compact, specialized models that do not waste resources.
Russia's Sberbank offers AI model to Global South states keen to bridge digital divide FILE PHOTO: A man walks near Sberbank office in Moscow · Reuters Gleb Bryanski and Elena Fabrichnaya Wed, June 3, 2026 at 5:33 PM GMT+7 2 min read SBER.ME (Amends dateline)
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia, June 3 (Reuters) - Russia is marketing "sovereign AI" to Global South countries concerned about privacy and content in Western AI models, a Sberbank executive told Reuters, as emerging states look to benefit from the technology and leapfrog hurdles such as weaker infrastructure.
Russia lags the U.S. and China in the global AI race, and Sberbank and Russian IT giant Yandex are working to catch up with their flagship models, GigaChat and YandexGPT. Sberbank sees demand for models trained on local content.