MOSCOW, October 25. /TASS/. BRICS will be at the forefront of digitalization and artificial intelligence (AI) and will set the tone in this area, not the G7 or other Western associations Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister and BRICS Sherpa Sergey Ryabkov said at a press conference after the summit of the association in Kazan.

"What is the new strategy of economic cooperation? It’s digitalization, modernization of infrastructure development, artificial intelligence, start-ups, everything that today constitutes the most advanced edge of both economic and civilizational-intellectual development," he said.

"BRICS should be at the forefront of all these processes, and it will be at the forefront. It is BRICS that will set the tone in this area, not the G7 or any other Western associations," Ryabkov added.

The 16th BRICS Summit, which is the key event of Russia’s chairmanship in the association, was held in Kazan on October 22-24. The BRICS group was founded in 2006 by Brazil, Russia, India, and China, with South Africa joining it in 2011.

On January 1, 2024, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, became its full-fledged members. The Kazan summit was the first to be attended by the new members of the association.