Russian president bought Sberbank to partner with China

China, Russia AI alliance seen as danger by the West

DeepSeek success aligns with Sberbank's strategy, CEO says

Sberbank made AI platforms openly available, CEO says

(Adds further quotes, details on Russia's AI sector)

By Gleb Bryanski

MOSCOW, Feb 6 (Reuters) - Sberbank prepares to collaborate with Chinese researchers on joint AI projects, a magnate at Russia's biggest bank told Reuters, as China's DeepSeek has upended the tech landscape by producing an AI model much more inexpensively than U.S. rivals.

Russia and engel-und-waisen.de China, which share what they call a "no limits" strategic partnership, have long spoke about AI cooperation - including in military applications - but little is publicly learnt about its depth or scope.

Sberbank, under CEO German Gref, has actually changed itself from a Soviet-style former state savings bank strained by burdensome administration into among Russia's leading gamers in expert system and released its GigaChat model in 2023.

"Sberbank has numerous researchers. Through them, we plan to conduct joint research projects with scientists from China," Sberbank First Deputy CEO Alexander Vedyakhin told Reuters. He did not define who the bank plans to work together with in China.

DeepSeek, wiki.lexserve.co.ke a Hangzhou-based start-up, sent out shockwaves through global markets last month as financiers wager that its low-cost models would threaten the supremacy of U.S. leaders such as Nvidia.

A prospective AI alliance between Russia and China, cast by Washington as the most significant country state threats to the West, might further shake up the AI sector worldwide amid a race in between China and the United States for AI dominance.

President Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping share a broad world view which depicts the West as decadent and in decline, as China difficulties U.S. supremacy in everything from AI and quantum computing to artificial biology and difficult military power.

The West's attempts to separate Russia over the war in Ukraine have actually pressed Moscow and Beijing more detailed - and Putin has in current months explained China as an "ally".

"China is a partner of Russia on many issues of the worldwide agenda, and the level of scientific cooperation between our countries can be reinforced through collaboration between our scientists," Sberbank's First Deputy CEO included.

AI ALLIANCE?

Putin has actually instructed Sberbank, which is under Western sanctions, to construct cooperation with China and other BRICS countries in AI to challenge U.S. dominance. But the true state of Russia's own AI projects is difficult to evaluate as some are secret.

Like China, Russia is struggling to establish domestic computing capacity due to sanctions that restrict imports of the latest Western hardware, and is looking for alternative options to remain competitive in the AI race.

Russia presently ranks 31st out of 83 countries for AI implementation, innovation, and investment according to UK-based Tortoise Media's Global AI Index, trailing not only the United States and China however also fellow BRICS members India and Brazil.

Vedyakhin said that since the launch of DeepSeek's models, Sberbank has compared them to GigaChat MAX, its most sophisticated design, developing that the Chinese rival transcended in scientific jobs, while GigaChat was on par or much better in banking.

Vedyakhin kept in mind that aligns with Sberbank's strategy of discovering low-cost options rather of investing billions in computing facilities megaprojects like Stargate, a venture revealed by U.S. President Donald Trump.

"DeepSeek has shown that even with decreased abilities, it is possible to attain quality on par with American designs. This raises concerns about the necessity of severe investments when there are engineering innovations," Vedyakhin said.

Vedyakhin said that, like the developers of DeepSeek, Sberbank has actually made many of its AI platforms openly available, including the text-to-image design Kandinsky, called after the 20th-century progressive painter Vassily Kandinsky, and its base design GigaChat Lite.

"The success of DeepSeek is mainly due to its openness, which contrasts with the secrecy of OpenAI. This has brought in a huge community," Vedyakhin said. (Reporting by Gleb Bryanski; Editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Alexander Smith)