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Russian president ordered Sberbank to partner with China

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China, Russia AI alliance seen as threat by the West

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DeepSeek success aligns with Sberbank's strategy, CEO says

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Sberbank made AI platforms publicly available, CEO says

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

By Gleb Bryanski

MOSCOW, Feb 6 (Reuters) - Sberbank plans to collaborate

with Chinese researchers on joint AI projects, a top executive

at Russia's biggest bank told Reuters, as China's DeepSeek has

upended the tech landscape by creating an AI model much more

cheaply than U.S. rivals.

Russia and China, which share what they call a "no limits"

strategic partnership, have long talked about AI cooperation -

including in military applications - but little is publicly

known about its depth or scope.

Sberbank, under CEO German Gref, has transformed itself from

a Soviet-style former state savings bank burdened by onerous

bureaucracy into one of Russia's leading players in artificial

intelligence and released its GigaChat model in 2023.

"Sberbank has many scientists. Through them, we plan to

conduct joint research projects with researchers from China,"

Sberbank First Deputy CEO Alexander Vedyakhin told Reuters. He

did not specify who the bank plans to collaborate with in China.

DeepSeek, a Hangzhou-based startup, sent shockwaves through

global markets last month as investors bet that its low-cost

models would threaten the dominance of U.S. leaders such as

Nvidia ( NVDA ).

A potential AI alliance between Russia and China, cast by

Washington as the biggest nation state threats to the West,

could further shake up the AI sector worldwide amid a race

between China and the United States for AI dominance.

President Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping share a broad world

view which portrays the West as decadent and in decline, as

China challenges U.S. supremacy in everything from AI and

quantum computing to synthetic biology and hard military power.

The West's attempts to isolate Russia over the war in

Ukraine have pushed Moscow and Beijing closer - and Putin has in

recent months described China as an "ally".

"China is a partner of Russia on many issues of the

international agenda, and the level of scientific cooperation

between our countries can be strengthened through collaboration

between our scientists," Sberbank's First Deputy CEO added.

AI ALLIANCE?

Putin has instructed Sberbank, which is under Western

sanctions, to build cooperation with China and other BRICS

nations in AI to challenge U.S. dominance. But the true state of

Russia's own AI projects is hard to assess as some are secret.

Like China, Russia is struggling to develop domestic

computing capacity due to sanctions that restrict imports of the

latest Western hardware, and is seeking alternative solutions to

remain competitive in the AI race.

Russia currently 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 but 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 advanced

model, establishing that the Chinese rival was superior in

scientific tasks, while GigaChat was on par or better in

banking.

Vedyakhin noted that DeepSeek's success aligns with

Sberbank's strategy of finding low-cost solutions instead of

investing billions in computing infrastructure megaprojects like

Stargate, a venture announced by U.S. President Donald Trump.

"DeepSeek has proven that even with reduced capabilities, it

is possible to achieve quality on par with American models. This

raises questions about the necessity of extreme investments when

there are engineering innovations," Vedyakhin said.

Vedyakhin said that, like the creators of DeepSeek, Sberbank

has made most of its AI platforms publicly accessible, including

the text-to-image model Kandinsky, named after the 20th-century

avant-garde painter Vassily Kandinsky, and its base model

GigaChat Lite.

"The success of DeepSeek is largely due to its transparency,

which contrasts with the secrecy of OpenAI. This has attracted a

huge community," Vedyakhin said.