Mikhail Mishustin participates in the Digital Qazaqstan 2026 international digital forum

The Prime Minister of Russia, alongside the heads of delegations participating in the forum, toured the digital projects exhibition and delivered his remarks at the plenary session.

Mikhail Mishustin's remarks:

Colleagues and friends,

I would like to extend my greetings to all participants of this digital forum. I also wish to express my personal gratitude to President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and Prime Minister of Kazakhstan Olzhas Bektenov for their excellent, always engaging, and meticulously organised events, which provide a valuable opportunity to discuss the implementation of cutting-edge innovations in the economy and the social sphere.

Today, technology, particularly digital technology, forms the foundation of national development. A robust IT sector is essential for its advancement. In Russia, we initiated large-scale support for this sector under the instruction of President Vladimir Putin. Our task was not merely to sustain the industry during the pandemic (this was back in those years) but to propel it forward with a powerful developmental impetus.

As a result, the contribution of the IT industry to our gross domestic product has doubled over six years, reaching 2.7 percent. The volume of Russian software products and services exceeded 5 trillion roubles, growing more than fourfold, while the average annual growth of the global market stood at around 8 percent.

These figures are the outcome of systematic and coordinated efforts by the state and businesses, our shared commitment to technological development, and, of course, joint endeavours to strengthen the sector's talent pool. After all, talented engineers, developers, and data analysts are the IT sector's most valuable asset.

It is thanks to them that we have accelerated the replacement of foreign solutions following the departure of several international companies from our market. We have also learned to produce not only simple system applications but also the most complex software, which is essential for managing production processes, designing engineering structures - so-called heavy computer-aided design systems - maintaining product lifecycles, and ensuring the stable operation of critically important infrastructure.

Sales of Russian software and development-related services last year reached 2.5 trillion roubles, marking a 20 percent year-on-year increase. Meanwhile, the industrial software market grew to approximately 50 billion roubles.

All such solutions can serve as the foundation for the digital transformation of economic sectors within the Eurasian Economic Union. Naturally (and I always emphasise this, including here at this esteemed forum), Russia is ready to share its most advanced developments with our friends and closest neighbours.

We also consider cooperation in such a promising field as artificial intelligence to be mutually beneficial. At the initiative of President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, we are preparing a draft Joint Statement by the heads of state on the development of this direction within our union. Its practical implementation will undoubtedly accelerate the launch of joint innovative projects.

I'd like to place particular emphasis on issues related to generative artificial intelligence. The President of Russia noted that competition in this field extends beyond major corporations to include the world's leading nations, all striving to develop their own foundational language models.

Russia possesses such models, and they are of high quality. They are widely used by our citizens because they effectively "understand" users - the local context, linguistic nuances, cultural features, and the broader characteristics of the country and region. This is largely due to their training on Russian-language datasets, which incorporate these specific elements.

One example is the voice assistant Alisa and its generative model. In terms of traffic, this service has managed to outperform all foreign AI applications available in Russia.

Its developers have created products that are both popular and convenient for users, with potential applicability across the Eurasian Economic Union.

As our valued partners, you have the opportunity not only to download an open model, but also to obtain a solution tailored to national specifics, with Russian engineering support. This approach enables further refinement and improvement of these products.

Today, neural networks are becoming true assistants in both professional settings and everyday life, and it is important that they remain accessible to a broad range of users.

The adoption of artificial intelligence is already driving progress across entire sectors of the economy, including civilian unmanned systems and transportation. In Russia, under the President's instruction, the necessary regulatory framework has been established to support the development of this field, ensuring the safety of emerging technologies before their transition to commercial and industrial use.

Nearly 100 autonomous trucks are currently operating on the M-11 Neva Motorway and the Central Ring Road, with their combined mileage on pilot routes surpassing 10 million kilometres last year.

These are not merely prototypes, but technologies already being deployed to shape the logistics systems of the future.

At the same time, we are advancing civilian unmanned aerial systems, which are being used across the Russian market in areas such as agriculture, logistics, and industrial monitoring.

That said, Russia has developed a comprehensive ecosystem of autonomous technologies. We are pleased to invite our partners within the Union, as well as all friendly states, to build on this foundation and launch joint projects for the development of unmanned cargo transportation along key international transport corridors. This will contribute to greater efficiency in the agricultural sector, improve delivery to remote areas, and support a wide range of other applications.

We are also ready to collaborate on the creation of unified regulations for autonomous systems across the Eurasian region as a whole.

I would also like to highlight the development of telecommunications technologies. Russia has established domestic production of fourth- and fifth-generation base stations, with 4,000 units manufactured by the end of last year. These are now being deployed across the networks of the country's leading telecom operators.

We are also advancing our optical infrastructure. A fully domestic platform is already in operation, delivering data transmission speeds of up to 800 gigabits per second. At the same time, a next-generation system with a total backbone capacity of up to 64 terabits per second is under development.

In addition, work has begun on creating a domestic low-Earth orbit satellite constellation to provide broadband internet access.

These technologies have the potential to serve as a foundation for strengthening our countries' technological independence from foreign solutions. Russia remains open to dialogue and joint projects in this field.

Colleagues, friends,

Today, one of the key challenges facing the Eurasian Economic Union is achieving technological and industrial sovereignty. This goal can be reached by building on our own national capabilities, particularly in areas where national economies have strong expertise. We support equal and mutually beneficial cooperation with all partners interested in developing an independent digital industry of the future - one that is resilient to external pressure and challenges.