In mid-February, the Ministry of Economic Development will publish for the first time the White Paper, a summary report on the development of certain high-tech areas. It is expected to be released annually.

In addition to the department, other ministries participated in creating the document, as well as the Higher School of Economics, Sberbank, the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), Rostec, Rostelecom, Rosatom, Russian Railways (RZD), Rosseti, Roskosmos and Gazprom. First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov ordered to prepare such a book in the summer of 2021.

The authors of the White Book specify that Russia, among other countries, ranks from 7th-8th to 19th in terms of publication activity of researchers and from fourth-sixth to the border of the second and third ten in patent activity. The development of technology in Russia is hampered by a strong dependence on the import of components and equipment, sanctions, a lack of qualified specialists, as well as an insufficient number of start-ups and the almost complete absence of unicorns.

In particular, the document states that:

• from 2015 to 2019, the global number of patent applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) increased from 22,500 to 63,700. Russian authors filed about 100–140 patent applications per year. In the total volume of scientific papers on AI, the share of Russian authors is 1.5% (2020 data). Among the main AI developers in Russia are Yandex, VisionLabs, NtechLab, Sberbank, VK, MTS, Gazprom Neft, Kaspersky Lab.
• Russia accounted for 0.2% of the total number of patent applications for inventions related to the Internet of things (IoT) in the world (2019 data) and 1.5% of the total number of scientific publications (2020 data). Among the leading Russian companies in this area are MTS, Beeline, MegaFon, Rostelecom, Rostec, etc. The main advantage of Russian players compared to the foreign ones is more functional software, more efficient data processing algorithms, storage solutions data and monitoring, etc. However, the main hardware solutions are made on a foreign element base.
• Russia accounted for 0.1% of the global number of patent applications for inventions related to fifth-generation (5G) mobile networks in 2019 and 1.8% of the total number of scientific publications (2020 data). Already, the penetration rate of 5G in the USA, China and South Korea is 15-20%, while in Russia the technology is implemented only in pilot zones, their full launch has been postponed until 2024. By this date, “the gap can reach critical values ​​both in terms of the level of development of the infrastructure of 5G networks and the degree of readiness of services based on them,” the authors of the document said.
• In 2019, Russia accounted for 1.5% of total patent applications related to quantum computing and 4.7% of scientific publications (2020 data). Rosatom, the Russian Quantum Center and various universities are developing these technologies in the country. The technological gap between Russia and the world leaders in the field of quantum computing is estimated at seven to ten years. In 2025-2030, when quantum computers will be massively introduced, “non-quantum technological leadership of the state will become impossible,” the document says.
• Russian authors occupied 0.2% in the total volume of patents in the field of distributed registry technologies (data of 2019) and 2.1% in scientific publications (according to the results of 2020). The project using this technology is being implemented by the National Settlement Depository, the Federal Tax Service, Dom.RF, Sberbank, Raiffeisenbank, Norilsk Nickel, Gazprom Neft, and others.

Original (in Russian)