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Russian majors to create AI alliance, says Sberbank CEO

The project will be implemented in the public private partnership format,

MOSCOW, November 8. /TASS/. Sberbank, Yandex, Gazprom Neft, the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), Mail.ru Group and MTS will create an alliance in the artificial intelligence (AI) sphere, supervised by the Ministry of Economic Development, Chief Executive Officer of Sberbank Herman Gref said on Friday at the AI Journey forum.

"We will finalize constitution of an alliance of Russian companies in the artificial intelligence sphere. Six Russian companies will be members of the alliance, Yandex, Mail, Gazprom Neft, RDIF, MTS and Sberbank," Gref said.

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"They are companies that assumed leadership in organizing development of this topic in the country as one of the most important for the future of our nation, industry and all the branches. There is no element of human activity at present where the artificial intelligence fails to provide new capabilities, the top manager said.

The project will be implemented in the public private partnership format, Gref noted.

"Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Maxim Akimov will be our partner from the government. The decision was made that the Ministry of Economic Development will be the ministry in charge of this topic," Gref added.

The consortium of the topic will be created in an open format and implies that companies of any size can participate in it, the banker said. "The consortium is an open one and we invite all companies to it, from major to small ones," he added.

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