Digitalization of the Russian army

Main article: Russian Armed Forces

Virtual reality in the Russian armed forces

Main article: Virtual reality in the armed forces of Russia

Cyber ​ ​ military of the Russian Federation

Main article: Cyber ​ ​ military of the Russian Federation

Artificial intelligence in the military-industrial complex

Main article: Artificial intelligence in the military-industrial complex

Chronicle

2024: How military digital technologies are developing in Russia

As of the beginning of 2024, investment funds in Russia record the growth of the venture capital segment of military technologies. This area includes specialized developments in the field of artificial intelligence, unmanned systems and secure communications. This is stated in the study, the results of which were published on April 4, 2024.

According to the Kommersant newspaper, citing data from state and private investment funds in the MilitaryTech venture area, annual growth in this area is expected to be 20-30%. The Department for the Development of Non-Banking Services of Promsvyazbank (PSB) notes that the number of applications for participation in the "dual-use acceleration program" increased more than fourfold in 2023 compared to the previous year.

source = Ministry of Defense of Russia

We see significant growth in such areas as communication systems for reliable communication, AI technologies and cybersecurity tools, unmanned technologies and means of combating them, which are needed to protect civilian infrastructure, "says PSB Vice President Aleksei Nazarov.

The growth in demand for unmanned technologies, primarily aircraft (UAVs), is partly due to the current geopolitical situation. The National Technology Initiative (NTI) notes that the observed trend concerns both the production of new drones and related solutions in the field of AI and software. Vitaly Smetanin, director of analytics at the NTI Sovereign Technology Fund, emphasizes that the demand for such projects "is unlikely to decrease in the long term," and therefore venture capital funds are showing increased interest in them.

Ruslan Sarkisov, managing partner of the Voskhod fund, says that startups in the earliest stages can receive investments to create a minimum viable product for 10-15 million rubles, while more mature companies attract amounts over 500 million rubles to scale the technology. At the same time, according to Sarkisov, military start-ups focus not on "conditional ammunition," but on robotics, AI tools, machine vision, modeling, forecasting, software solutions for automation and biomedicine. Among the technological incentives is a sharp increase in demand for "non-classical high-tech weapons and for operational product modification."

In modern geopolitical conditions, investments in military entities have an understandable argument: the state budget for 2024 provides for more than 10 trillion rubles for national defense and national security, which indicates the priority of these areas for the public sector, Sarkisov notes.

At the same time, Pavel Novitsky, General Director of JSC UK INTC Aerospace Innovative Valley, believes that technologies applicable in the civil segment may be of interest to investors. These can be, in particular, machine vision algorithms, AI or decision automation. On the other hand, many investment funds are wary of such projects. This is primarily due to non-obvious scenarios for use in the civilian sector, which is why the ROI indicators are vague.

Alexei Simakov, head of the Loktar UAV detection and counteraction department, adds that the Russian military-technical market "is extremely lacking in early-stage systemic venture capital investments." According to him, the main state funds look at companies with noticeable stable revenue, but most successful products are born in spite of the current financing system.^[1]

2021: The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation creates a department for work with artificial intelligence

On May 31, 2021, it became known about the timing of the creation by the Russian Ministry of Defense of the Department for Work with Artificial Intelligence. This structure will have its own budget, said Mikhail Osyko, a member of the board of the Military-Industrial Commission (MIC) under the government. Read more here.

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