Maksut Shadayev at TAdviser SummIT - about the challenges in the digitalization of the public sector, the pressure of Chinese IT suppliers and the prospects for AI

Maksut Shadayev: Good afternoon, thank you for continuing to invite. It's always very nice to be with you. Cool expert discussions, a full hall, a huge number of stands. It's good that everything is developing, it shows that the industry lives, breathes.

The issue of digitalization of public administration is very correct, because since March 2022, the focus has been on issues related to support ITindustries for -, the transition to Russian IT products. In general, we have so far, if we have not completely coped with the key challenges, then at least we are successfully opposing them, although there is still a lot to be done. But I agree that the digitalization of public administration remains a core work. This is a very important direction, because it concerns the lives of all our citizens. In general, I am satisfied with the results of the work done in recent years. I believe that we managed to significantly increase the number of mass services completely in digital form, when both the application for public services and the result come in number. Of course, there are many questions left in this area.

Maksut Shadayev: Thank you for continuing to invite. It's always very nice to be with you. Cool expert discussions, a full hall, a huge number of stands. It's good that everything is developing, it shows that the industry lives, breathes

In fact, recently we considered how our IT budget has changed - federal authorities, regions, and saw a dramatic trend: the total IT budget of federal authorities and regions, with the exception of Moscow, is systematically declining. And it turns out this way: we have super-large-scale, ambitious plans for the digitalization of authorities and there are good results, but costs are decreasing. This also creates certain challenges for us.

Maksut Shadayev: Now I will not name the exact numbers, but the annual funding of federal authorities and regions has decreased, if we take the dynamics for four years. At the same time, no one removes the tasks associated with the development of client experience. Citizens tasted how convenient, simple, fast, and want it to be even faster. Key challenge: Maintain the same pace of change with significantly less financial resources. This is a complex technological challenge. And we also noticed a very important trend: leaders at the federal level and in the regions go further - those who have the financial capabilities, personnel, competencies and ambitions for this. And those who do not have such opportunities, who do not have enough budget resources or personnel, remain in place. As a result, the gap between leaders and laggards is widening. This is also an alarming story, because not everyone in our country is moving equally quickly into the digital sphere, many are slowing down a lot.

Thus, if we take a set of factors, then the first factor: the pace is high and the expectations are high among our citizens, users, consumers. Second: budget spending is decreasing. Third: the gap between leaders and laggards is widening. And the only big window of opportunity is platforming. This is what gives us a historical chance to move away from the development of private individual systems of departments, often called patchwork automation, to platform cloud services with the maximum coefficient of their reuse, so that each authority does not "reinvent the wheel" - now there are simply not enough resources for this.

Maksut Shadayev: Gostech is a platform that allows, due to low-code and no-code components, to quickly assemble specific solutions based on a centralized IT infrastructure. And security is immediately ensured. The greatest potential and effect of the use of Gosteh will probably be for regions and municipalities. Because it is the regions and municipalities that have typical functions, and resources and budgetary opportunities are not enough. Therefore, we have a task when launching, for example, a cloud service for property accounting or providing social security measures so that this service can be used in all regions that do not have appropriate mature information systems. That is, we are talking about "sawing up," as we say, cloud services for regions and municipalities, and in this direction the largest potential of Gostekh. For federal departments, Gostech is the ability to use ready-made components to quickly assemble appropriate information systems. All in one package, all components are integrated with each other. You can choose what you need and combine, quickly creating GIS.

Maksut Shadayev: Here we face a very serious challenge. On the one hand, we cannot but support our IT industry, and, on the other hand, the entire government order market cannot be given only to our large, beloved corporations, of course. This market is very large and promising, although the amount of financing is decreasing, but still the government order market is a very significant share of expenses in the IT market. The challenge before us is: as part of platforming, find the opportunity to ensure the work of individual industry vendors, regional integrators, IT companies engaged in support and implementation. This, of course, is the most important task, because, I remind you, a certain monopolization in the market began in 2009 or 2010, when it was decided to give the IT infrastructure of public services to Rostelecom as the general executor. From that moment, the "march" of large state-owned companies in the IT market began, and we understand perfectly well that the share of orders controlled by Rostelecom is growing annually. This is also understandable, because it is easier for both federal and regional officials to work with a transparent, understandable state-owned company than to select private players - for this you need to work closely with them.

Gosteh is platforming and, in theory, it should strengthen the presence of Rostelecom... But our task is to properly negotiate with the market in order to limit the ambitions of large corporations, to clearly agree on the rules of the game, so that both industry vendors and regional developers are guaranteed to gain their market share. We met with representatives of the IT industry, discussed these problems, rules. Now they look like this: Rostelecom and Sberbank are concentrating on the formation and support of the core of the Gostech platform, the basic components, and the implementation and configuration of work with end customers is given to the market. And this, in my understanding, is the basic principle.

The key question: how to ensure that there is no dependence on a particular developer. For the regions, this is solved very simply - by using a low-code platform. At the choice of the region, the project is given to those contractors who want to implement specific solutions on the platform. These contractors, in turn, configure business processes, software, implement it in order to provide support for the work of a particular department in a particular region, taking into account the specifics that exist. And here there will be no joint ventures, there will be an absolutely market history. In fact, Rostelecom is ready to delegate this work to those companies that the region will independently choose. Naturally, the tariff policy will be unified. Relatively speaking, the cost of implementing a specific solution on the platform will be the same, and it will be charged depending on the number of users, the amount of computing resources used. But in general, this is a competitive situation and while the region is satisfied with the regional partner, Rostelecom will give all this work to him.

From the point of view of federal systems, the situation is more complicated, the model of absolute outsource will not work. There are two options that Rostelecom offers. The first is the creation of joint ventures with those companies that have a large industry expertise, experience in working with a specific department. The second is very strict code alienation procedures to reduce the dependence of a specific service on a specific developer in the interests of this department. Here our audience is specialized, everyone understands perfectly well that the choice of a contractor is the emergence of a certain dependence, and no matter what cool customers we are, this dependence remains. And the longer we work with contractors, the more we depend on it. Here we are no longer always free to make decisions, determine price conditions. It is very difficult to get off a specific developer, transfer to another solution. We all know this very well, so from the point of view of federal departments there will be deeper integration. It allows you to ensure that the expertise of developers who deeply understand the specifics of the department's work will be reused. In fact, this is a refusal to control the code in exchange for guaranteed demand and further work in this department.

Therefore, the main challenge and, I believe, 70% of efforts will be concentrated around the creation of re-used regional services on Gostekh, and federal large GISs are 20-30% of the future platform. And this mainly applies to those departments that have not recently modernized their information systems. In many of them, application solutions still seriously depend on foreign software, everything must be rewrote again, quickly rewritten in order to comply with all our regulatory deadlines.

Maksut Shadayev: We have identified ten basic directions for the digitalization of regional powers. I hope that at the end of next year there will be two or three pilot implementations for each of these areas. In the next three to four years, we will be able to provide this service to those regions that do not have their own systems and which will be ready to use turnkey services that the federation will give them absolutely free of charge.

Maksut Shadayev: No, it does not arise. If there is a system, and it meets all our target requirements for the quality of services that we will provide to our users, and the region is ready to comply with these requirements, then it remains to work absolutely independently. And this also allows us to combine. Leaders who are ready to go further for their budgets, in this large forest of ours to break through clearings, we are ready to support. And there are no restrictions here regarding their transition to Gostech. But two-thirds of the regions do not have such opportunities - to move forward on their own, they are ready to take already proven decisions and quickly implement them.

Maksut Shadayev: The strategy has been updated, agreed, is under consideration in the Presidential Administration. We hope that after all the discussions and amendments, it will be signed in an updated form. This was preceded by a big discussion, several big discussions took place. There was a strategic session in the Government, which was personally led by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin. We searched for answers to all challenges associated with the development of generative models. All this required rethinking and reflection.

In terms of public administration, I can say what kind of picture we have now, where we have now in public administration, if we widely understand - in the budgetary sphere, artificial intelligence is used. First of all, for recognizing numbers, faces in urban video surveillance systems. In second place, after covid, is an attempt to introduce artificial intelligence into the recognition system of medical images (CT , MRI), which tell doctors what to pay attention to, where there are signs of diseases. And as a second opinion, it actively works, it is used. I see very great progress in terms of introducing artificial intelligence into all kinds of public service formats. Basically, these are call centers, hotlines, where chatbots, robots give a lot of growth and you can free up a lot of people who used to answer typical questions. Now you can make an appointment with a doctor without an operator.

I see separate attempts to introduce artificial intelligence in the analysis of geotreeks. Many regions are trying to analyze them, where and how to rebuild the traffic management system, how to change the scheme of public transport in order to better meet the needs of citizens.

I see attempts to use artificial intelligence when working with texts. We still receive a large number of citizens' appeals. And we are not working with data yet, and often with documents - these are citizens' appeals. Everything related to the processing of these unstructured data arrays, here, too, artificial intelligence helps a lot. For example, by analyzing the content of a case, it allows you to automatically schedule the responsible performer. Or ensures the extraction of the problem of certain points from the appeal of citizens and builds analytics around this. Here are these directions... We do not take highly specialized topics like fingerprint analysis at the crime scene - this is also a very large domain, but it is in a separate department. The Ministry of Internal Affairs uses a very cool, powerful system that allows you to analyze all this. But if we talk in general, then these five main directions, where it will continue to progress.

Maksut Shadayev: This is our pain. We make a very big focus on front services so that it is convenient for a person, all the data is pulled up, everything is formed as quickly as possible. So that a certain life situation comes, and the draft application for public services already lies on the service portal. And from the point of view of frontal interaction, there is progress. But when we talk about the timing of the provision of services... That is, you can quickly and simply apply for services, but if we take administrative regulations - the main document that determines the procedure for providing a particular state service, then the time for providing the service has practically not been reduced, with very rare exceptions. And, accordingly, the costs did not decrease either. In this sense, we have a very convenient "entrance and exit," people are less and less going to the MPSC, everything is simple and convenient, but the internal processes of departments are lagging behind in terms of digitalization. And, accordingly, the question of reducing the number of the apparatus cannot yet be raised.

Although you know our basic idea, which is that artificial intelligence is not needed to provide public services, because there is no subjective decision-making. When providing public services, everything is very simple: if the applicant has a right, which is determined by a set of requirements, then he must receive this service, has no right - he will not receive it. I know only one service that requires subjective consideration - this is an architectural and urban planning appearance. When a decision is made to allow the construction of a certain building on the central street of the city, its artistic image is separately considered, as far as it fits into the current landscape. A whole commission of architects looks at whether the building is being knocked out of the landscape. The rest of the state services are definitely not related to artificial intelligence. They can be digitized. To do this, we need to develop interdepartmental interaction, because we still lack certain information that can be provided automatically. Although we have annual traffic in SMEV 4.0 at the level of 70 billion requests that we have worked this year.

We believe that platforming, when we go inside the department and try to optimize decision-making processes, making them more or less automatic, will free up a significant part of officials.

But the word "release" always causes a certain alarm for officials when they are trying to release them. This is rather not about release, but about the use of an official in other areas that require creative efforts, and not just routine consideration of an application for public services - there are reasons for this person to appoint a measure of social protection or not. I believe that the next period, until 2030, should lead to the reuse and redirection of bureaucratic resources to more effective, creative areas of work.

Maksut Shadayev: We are going consistently. Provided the connection of all schools to the Internet on the basis of fiber-optic communication - 98% of schools are already connected. Then we started building wi-fi networks in schools so that the Internet came to every classroom. And the third task arising from the first two is to distribute tablets to teachers that can be used directly in the classroom learning process to prepare for classes.

We are now discussing the first pilot story for next year. It will not be big, because the main question is: how do we build the process? It is necessary that there are ready-made working applications for teachers: an electronic journal, an application for working with electronic content, videoconferences chats - all the working environment that should be in this tablet. I think 2024 will be the year of a small pilot, where we will try different options, understand which tablets are convenient. There is still a discussion - maybe after all? laptops The form factor tablet seems more convenient to us. As a result of this, we hope that within the framework of the new program we will be able to choose the right path and from 2025 begin mass equipping of teachers and doctors in hospitals and those who go home with Russian tablets. This will also allow us to ensure the formation of our own production, because so far there is not enough large order to form this production.

Maksut Shadayev: At the end of last year, for the first time, we achieved such a significant result as 50% of the heavy equipment market - servers and DSS - the share of Russian manufacturers. This happened due to several factors. The first - the departure of Western manufacturers, the second - Chinese vendors took a certain pause, the third factor - the government issued a large preferential loan, about 100 billion rubles, to several manufacturers for the purchase of components. Our manufacturers, having received a preferential loan, were able to form a certain stock of components, and provide demand at a time of some uncertainty, and received 50% of the market, and most importantly, began to actively invest in the development of their production capacities. The preferential loan allowed the time necessary for the restructuring of logistics, so that the components travel, spend more comfortably, and rebuild their logistics. And what do we see in this situation?

Of course, parallel imports have normalized, and iron, the manufacturers of which are not represented here, is coming to us. Chinese manufacturers have begun to "storm," and we now see, starting from the second quarter of this year, a very active increase in the efforts of Chinese manufacturers to fight for large orders. In this situation, we are under very serious pressure. Various measures are being considered how we can support the positive result achieved by Russian manufacturers. This is a whole set of measures, a decision has not yet been made. It is considered, among other things, the ban on parallel imports for a number of positions where we have a competitive solution, but this will affect only Western manufacturers. And we, basically, it seems to me, are under pressure from Chinese manufacturers, and in this context the ban on parallel imports will not help us very much.

The introduction of scrap collection is being considered - a measure that came to us from the automotive industry. Scrap collection allows you to equalize the cost characteristics of foreign and Russian manufacturers, and provide additional support for domestic suppliers at the expense of these funds. This problem is now in the spotlight, but so far no final decisions have been made. We are discussing. The Ministry of Digital Development proceeds from the main principle: do not harm. On the one hand, we must support our manufacturers, but the measures being implemented should not lead to an imbalance in the market. We are now defending this position within the Government, let's see what the final decision will be.

Maksut Shadayev: I think at the beginning of next year.

Maksut Shadayev: From the point of view of the quality of the developments themselves, they are quite competitive. The main question: how to organize mass production in the context of sanctions restrictions? Colleagues try to do this, use different schemes. Not ready to talk about this topic in more detail. The main problem for us is that there are competitive developments, but, I repeat, it is very difficult to mass-produce these processors now, taking into account sanctions restrictions.

Maksut Shadayev: I am not yet ready to make predictions, this is a very difficult question.

Maksut Shadayev: The segment of user habits is the hardest. Many people studied a computer only for Windows and Office. Habits have developed for decades and, of course, the usability of these products is very high, habits are formed. Changing the model of user behavior is the most difficult, it will take a certain time, in my view 5-7 years. In order for our products to pull up, they became more convenient, and users switched to them gradually. This is a natural process that we will certainly stimulate somehow. And in this sense, there will be a certain discomfort for users. Tatarstan, for example, in the fall decided to transfer about 150 thousand computers to Astra Linux.

Maksut Shadayev: Yes, all state employees - schools, kindergartens, municipalities, authorities. It is clear that for the user it will be a sharp change in the usual environment, discomfort, but I think that there will be more and more such cases. A person gets used to everything. I believe that there is no big functional difference between Office and what is already available in Russian products. It is clear that there are still unrealized things used by 5% of users, but in terms of mass functions, our products have already caught up with Office.

Maksut Shadayev: I have a R7, I like him. All mail and all working internal communications, messenger are applications from VK.

Maksut Shadayev: We thought to do this immediately for all products and with a certain deadline, but it did not work out, because different categories of software have very different readiness to switch to Russian OS. There are such categories of software - for example, computer-aided design systems, where it will take several years to transfer them to the use of Russian operating systems. Therefore, the work now looks like this: the n-th number of categories has been determined and for each software category there will be its own individual period for ensuring compatibility with three Russian OSs that the industry has chosen.

Maksut Shadayev: Yes, but there will still be a period from one year to three.

Maksut Shadayev: No, the terms are being discussed. I think that in the first quarter of next year we will be able to finally fix them so that this does not cause certain difficulties on the market. Deadlines should be clearly established. They could be coming in a few years, it won't be momentary so there's no panic. After all, IT companies are very worried that they will have to take out significant resources from the development of products and invest in compatibility with Russian OS.

Maksut Shadayev: Our procedure is quite established in this sense. And, frankly, there is often a discussion as to whether we can include Open Source products in the Register, whether they are Russian, but so that we include foreign products, even from friendly countries, I do not know this. A discussion whether the finalized Open Source is Russian or not periodically arises. And even today we will have a big meeting with developers of mobile operating systems, equipment manufacturers to decide whether the modified Android is a Russian OS, and in what part it must be finalized so that it can be recognized as a Russian mobile OS. Cases when we classify foreign software as Russian are not very known to me. If there are such signals, let's discuss. The examination in this sense is quite serious. And what, someone in the RPA category is trying to include something in the Register?

Maksut Shadayev: You tell me, we will see.

Maksut Shadayev: In general, PIX Robotics is a cool company, a cool RPA class solution. Who does not use it yet, I recommend that everyone look.

Maksut Shadayev: Last year we made a big program for the Federation Council. And there are plans to develop this platform. The legislature is a separate branch, and in this case the initiative should come from the legislatures. We are now actively discussing with the State Duma a concept that could fit into our new National Data Economy program. In the Federation Council, we are discussing. There should be offers from the customer. Colleagues want, now we formulate the event.

Maksut Shadayev: The second or third time you ask this question, traditionally. No one except you has come to me over the years that it is necessary to engage in the digitalization of regional Legislative Assemblies.

Maksut Shadayev: Okay, thank you. We just communicate a lot with the regions and, basically, this is the executive branch, but no one has ever identified the need for additional digitalization.

Maksut Shadayev: I am still an official, it is difficult for me to predict. The only thing I see is drilling started in the market, and that's very cool because there are a lot of companies, young guys thinking of launching startups. And in this sense, I see signals that all this will continue to develop. And what will shoot? Let anything shoot. Then they will allow themselves to buy a suit.

Maksut Shadayev: This is a very good question, because literally another month has not passed, as there was a big, strategic session on the development of PLM solutions, also with the participation of the Prime Minister, large industrial holdings. We discussed how to switch from foreign PLM products to Russian systems. Separately, the need to have an integration bus for in-industry cooperation between different companies was noted so that using different PLM solutions it was possible to build an end-to-end life cycle. And an order was given to the Ministry of Digital Development, together with the Ministry of Industry and Trade, to start working out this integration bus in order to ensure the possibility of a seamless exchange of design developments.

Maksut Shadayev: We can respond to the needs of business. And the business told us: we need a platform for working together on design documentation, organizing the production process. If we are told that industry platforms of a broader plan are needed in order to integrate MES systems with each other, it is probably possible. But we are here coming from the needs of the business.

Maksut Shadayev: We have a good support measure, I think - the most effective when we are ready to help large companies, both individual and cooperative in implementing the solutions that they need. And we are ready to take on a significant part of the financing so that they can refine promising Russian developments to the required level and deploy them. And if there are such projects, we will gladly support them with money, the introduction of such platforms.

Maksut Shadayev: We have already adopted amendments that allow us to obtain a residence permit in an accelerated mode. But those who are abroad, those who left there and those who historically from there, we must use. Let's discuss what the challenges are to hire a specialist who lives in another country to work for our IT company.

Maksut Shadayev: In the Ministry of Digital...

Maksut Shadayev: You can write to me.

Maksut Shadayev: We are working on amendments in only two parts in 44-FZ and 223-FZ. The first is to simplify access to the market of government orders and orders for state-owned companies for certain types of IT companies. Conditionally, we believe that if, for example, the company received a state grant and made a decision, then up to 10 million rubles, the company should be able to conclude contracts, both with government agencies and with state-owned companies, without bidding.

This will enable us to support the demand for promising startup solutions that cannot pass through the screen of qualification selection and requirements that are needed to participate in procurement. Second, we believe that the same option should be for systemically important companies. We believe that if such a company invests in the development of its product by agreement with the Government, then it should also be able to conclude contracts with state-owned companies without bidding, and without restrictions on the amount.

And the second big direction is everything about Agile development, that is, we say that the current 44-FZ procedures are not entirely convenient and do not take into account the need to organize flexible development. As for the supply of iron, we simply understand that the procedures here are the same for everyone.

We tried last year to say that let us, for example, on the purchase of computer equipment, when there was a real risk of a shortage, make it possible to purchase without bidding, we were not supported in the Government at that moment. Honestly, I do not really understand, because by equipment everyone already understands how to work with auctions, with purchases. If there are additional proposals, let's consider them, but for now we are working on the 44th and 223-FZ in the areas that I spoke about.

Maksut Shadayev: But we are trying to lower the barriers so that small businesses can participate. There is always a difficult story here. As soon as you enter qualification requirements for the supplier, you immediately limit competition. This is an eternal discussion between more participants and less qualification requirements, and vice versa. Moreover, there is also a bank guarantee and if the company does not have qualifications, great experience, but it wins the auction, wants to supply, but cannot, it risks losing the bank guarantee. And this is considered as the main deterrent, in my understanding, to prevent unscrupulous suppliers.

Maksut Shadayev: The question is - to get what they wanted, or to get from the one from whom they wanted - there is also a difference.

Maksut Shadayev: Let's discuss. I agree that 44-FZ is a very complex science. Those who know how to use it receive the necessary result, but the qualification requirements for these guys are super-high. In order to go through all the nuances of the 44-FZ and get what you wanted as a subject of supply, this really requires super-qualification, a clear understanding of all the nuances, and an ordinary person will not immediately figure out how to buy what is needed and not get what is not needed. In this sense, 44-FZ is science. Can it be facilitated, simplified, and at the same time prevent chaos? I don't know the answer. Let's discuss separately. APKIT is preparing proposals for simplifying the 44-FZ, you can give your ideas there.

Maksut Shadayev: Western giants were present in oil and gas from the very beginning of the market economy. We have Industrial Competence Centers that bring customers together. Last year I watched how they were going, began to discuss whether there were Russian developments in their industry. It turns out there is. Even with this dominance of foreign vendors, they found their niches, with their interesting solutions. The process was launched last year, when the collaboration of customers among themselves began, they began to look for Russian solutions that can, at least in the future, be grown to a comparable level with foreign products. And suddenly it turned out that we have a lot of things.

And it was a big surprise. It seems to me that this is a very good story, and the process increases its momentum. I really hope that the customer turned his face to his developers, who had a hard time surviving. Those who survived went through super school. They are hardened guys, understand the advantages of their decisions, and they have the opportunity to increase the size of their niche at times. Like with PLM solutions - there are Siemens, Dassault, such giant brands, with huge billions of dollars in investment, and here our solutions are. Yes, of course, there is where to move, but together with customers this movement will go faster. Therefore, I really want to wish customers in this industry to look for and grow IT solutions, it will not work differently.