- Russian bank Sberbank is looking to use AI chips manufactured in China to operate its GigaChat AI model.
- CEO German Gref made this statement during President Vladimir Putin’s visit to China.
- Russia currently faces restricted access to advanced AI hardware from the West due to technology sanctions.
- GigaChat is the flagship AI model developed by Sberbank to drive Russia’s national AI ambitions.
- Sberbank is competing with several large Chinese internet corporations to purchase Huawei’s Ascend 950 AI chips.
- Chinese companies such as ByteDance, Tencent, and Alibaba Group are also significantly increasing their orders for Ascend 950 chips.
- The Ascend 950 is currently China’s most advanced AI chip but is still considered less powerful than Nvidia’s H200 GPU.
- Russia currently lags behind the US and China in the AI race and remains heavily dependent on electronic imports for sensitive sectors like defense.
- China is now Russia’s primary electronics supplier amidst Moscow’s isolation from Western tech supply chains.
- Sberbank is expanding into electronics manufacturing after purchasing a stake in the component manufacturer Element.
- A joint statement following the meeting between Putin and Xi Jinping emphasized AI as a key factor for economic reform and bilateral AI cooperation.
- Russia and China also committed to cooperation in defense, open-source software, and supporting China’s proposal to establish a global AI agency.
- Both countries warned against the use of AI as a geopolitical tool in international competition.
📌 Russia is increasingly dependent on China’s AI ecosystem and chips as it is cut off from advanced GPU access by the West. The competition for Huawei chips between Sberbank and Chinese Big Tech shows that AI demand in China is so massive that even a strategic ally like Russia must fight for supply. Simultaneously, AI is becoming a new pillar in Russia-China relations, not only in the economy but also in defense and strategic technology. This reflects the increasingly clear formation of a “non-Western” AI ecosystem centered around China.
