The head of the Ministry of Digital Development Maksut Shadayev - about bans, incentives and new approaches to the development of the IT industry. TAdviser interview

Maksut Shadayev: With Gostekh, in fact, everything is so, if we talk in general. On May 7, the Presidential Decree on National Development Goals for the period up to 2030 was issued. It is very good that digital transformation and in general - the creation of a data economy are recorded as one of the most important goals of national development. And in this aspect, we already have eleven significant indicators that we must achieve within the framework of the program, and before that there were four. Thus, now the expectations from the implementation of this national program have become much more extensive. And wherever they talk about these indicators, or about the creation of various information systems, or about the transition to proactive Public services online, it is indicated that this is done on the basis of a single digital platform. In almost every point that concerns the implementation of IT systems, there is such a small postscript everywhere, and this means that the concept of Gosteh is alive, this story will continue.

If we recall the chronology of events, then the small pilot of Gostekha was launched in 2021 and until 2022 we studied the situation as a whole - the readiness of departments, the possibility of introducing a single platform, and so on. In May last year, at a meeting of the Government, we agreed that Gostech as a concept will live, we will massively transfer information systems to this platform, create gis.

I also note that cloud services platforms are being successfully implemented in the segment small and medium-sized businesses, which is shown by such market players as, and Yandex VC everyone who is actively developing their cloud presence. In the heavy segment of large corporate customers (Enterprise), we are probably pioneers, since we are trying to implement our private public cloud Gostech as a platform within the State Cloud for large departments.

And I believe we have successes. Of course, much remains to be done due to the President's decision that a single digital platform should become the main tool for implementing the tasks of digital transformation of government agencies, so we have fewer opportunities to move at a slower pace.

I think that Gostech will become mainstream for the next 3-5 years, the main driver, and this is understandable, including taking into account the state of the economy. After all, we are well aware that it is becoming more and more difficult to allocate serious budgets for digital transformation. At the regional level, unfortunately, we are recording that the level of digital divide between regions is growing. There are leading regions that are invested in digitalization, and there are regions that, for various reasons, cannot afford such an amount of investment. The Gostech platform will become a tool that will be designed to ensure alignment between regions through typical cloud services, both infrastructure and application. Therefore, I think that everything will be fine with Gostekh. I am very glad that there are so many expectations from Gostekh that we were supposed to make a revolution, but there are really no examples of a large-scale government transition to a cloud platform in the world. And, of course, this path is very difficult.

Maksut Shadayev: I am sure that everything will be fine.

Maksut Shadayev: We have two tasks. On the one hand, there are more digital solutions in different sectors of the economy, in particular, in heavy industries. We understand that efficiency, competitiveness are directly related to the volume of implementation of digital solutions. But if earlier this process was based on the best international practices, now, unfortunately, we are limited in this. Stimulating the introduction of new digital solutions, today it is necessary to make sure that these are the solutions of Russian vendors. At the same time, we are faced with the task of not only replacing systems based on foreign large corporate solutions with Russian similar products. It is necessary to increase the volume of digitalization of production enterprises and the economy. This is an ambitious task. We must move forward, and this movement must be based on Russian solutions.

Maksut Shadayev: It should be profitable for business to invest in Russian software, this should reduce the tax burden

Just last week, we had a big conference in Nizhny Novgorod, where we discussed the transition of heavy industries to Russian solutions. Despite skepticism, the process began and, in general, is not just going on, but is already acquiring the character of a progressive movement. The most important risk that I see in terms of switching to Russian solutions is the risk of preserving the used foreign solutions. As follows from the survey, foreign software works, everything is fine. Our companies have learned to live in new conditions on old software, learned to update, put foreign software on new jobs, and deploy new modules. If you ask business representatives about the transition to Russian software, they will answer that they are ready to implement the task of digital transformation, increasing the digital maturity of the business on foreign software. You also don't have to pay for it. And why leave him? Why spend money on Russian software, which is often even lower in maturity, both functional and technical?

Maksut Shadayev: In addition to digital business transformation, we are responsible for the development of our IT industry. The Presidential Decree says that IT spending should grow twice as fast as GDP. This is the main indicator. We will insist on two mechanisms. First, it is necessary to create additional economic incentives for business to switch to Russian solutions, and this should be due to certain tax motivations. I will not disclose mechanics now, but it should be profitable for business to invest in Russian software, this should reduce the tax burden. And I think such decisions will be made. Secondly, if you still use foreign software, we are discussing the collection of a certain fee for its use in order to equalize the conditions for the introduction of Russian software using foreign software. This measure is not very popular from a business point of view, because why pay for something if it can be used for free? But we all understand that if there are no economic incentives, restrictive measures, then business will continue to live in the current IT landscape. And this is not a very good scenario in our understanding, so we will move here, change something. The Government has already submitted the bill to the State Duma.

Maksut Shadayev: We will follow this path: industry departments as regulators in their own industry will determine what KII is. In this sense, business will no longer have as much freedom in terms of classification as we are seeing now. Smart business today says that it does not have a CII, that this or that IT system does not affect the business. Business has the right to independently determine what is CII and what is not, and many do not want to classify their IT systems as CII. Honestly, in this regard, freedom will remain much less, it will be limited by industry regulators, each of which in their industry will determine the classifiers of CII and impose them from above. Unfortunately or fortunately, the business will be forced to classify part of its IT systems as CII, and the regulator will not only force IT systems to be classified correctly, but will also determine the deadlines for switching to domestic solutions.

My favorite example in this context is this. Take the airport, baggage management and passenger check-in systems. It is understood no airport now classifies itself as a CII facility. But if the passenger registration system for flights and the baggage management system stop working, it is clear that the airport will experience serious difficulties. And it is clear that some of these systems will be defined as CII, there will be certain dates for the transition to Russian solutions. This will create an additional incentive for such a transition, but in a coercive format. Economic stimulus, too, as I said above, will hopefully be aligned.

Maksut Shadayev: My position on this issue has not changed much, we cannot restrict state-owned companies directly. The only thing when we can influence is at the stage of agreeing on their strategies for digital transformation. In this regard, we have an understandable indicator that we are guided by: in the costs of digital transformation, we ask no more than 30% to be directed to our own developments. And almost all state-owned companies are in this corridor.

Maksut Shadayev: It is important to concentrate already not very large financial resources on the development of full-fledged competitive market developers who can provide their products and services to the entire market

And another important point: there are different state-owned companies. We should not limit those state-owned companies that bring their IT subsidiaries to the market, but we must very carefully monitor whether these commercial subsidiaries receive income from external sales. If they receive, then in this case, probably, we are ready to go for certain indulgences. But if the company develops a solution only for internal use and does not plan further commercialization, then in this case we will propose a ban on financing the development of basic software, analogues of which are on the market.

And it seems to us that this is a good story, because our economy is not very large. It is important to concentrate already not very large financial resources on the development of full-fledged competitive market developers who can provide their products and services to the entire market. And we will carry out such work with state-owned companies.

In principle, I advocate a ban on the development of products whose analogues are on the commercial IT market. With one exception: if state-owned companies decide on the targeted development of IT-Business focused on external revenue, and not on an internal order. We see that there are such developments, but so far - unfortunately for state-owned companies and fortunately for private, some super success in terms of state-owned companies bringing IT products to the foreign market, we do not observe. There is no such success story so that the state-owned company makes a cool product, and transplants half of the market to it. Let's hope that such products will arise, or state-owned companies that develop the IT-Business will at some point learn to soberly look at the prospects of such a business. Our task is to help those specialized IT subsidiaries of state-owned companies who receive more than 50% of revenue from the external market, and not from an internal customer. Then we will assume that this company really has prospects in the IT market.

Maksut Shadayev: This has already been announced by Mikhail Vladimirovich (Mishustin). I assume that soon we will receive an order to work out the possibilities and conditions for applying such a restriction, and I think that by the end of the year we will decide on the rules.

Maksut Shadayev: Indeed, our bigtech, as we love the largest Russian technology companies, has been working with leading universities for a very long time. IT companies open departments, participate in the training of specialists, but so far all this is limited by the small number of universities that prepare our IT elite. There are few of these universities around which this activity occurs, literally 5-7. This is a cool, successful practice, and we want to continue to replicate it. For example, we have increased the number of budget places in IT specialties by 2.5 times. In 2019, there were 50 thousand applicants who entered IT specialties annually, now there are already 127 thousand of them, and I hope even this year there will be even more. The guys go to regional universities to receive IT specialties.

It is clear that in general, the problem of the quality of training in IT specialties is very acute. The demand for these specialties is high, we have created a potential opportunity for such specialties, and more and more graduates are choosing computer science. Their motivation is clear: high pay, employment opportunities, and in general an interesting direction, so many young guys and girls want to connect their future with the IT industry. However, we cannot yet provide the quality of training on such a scale. And the only option we have found for ourselves is to replicate the best practice of the largest IT companies that do this voluntarily only in individual elite universities. We want to extend this practice to the whole country, in fact, to consolidate one or several large IT companies for each university, including regional ones, so that they invest in the training of IT personnel. It is clear that this is an additional cost to the IT industry and an administrative option to stimulate this activity is being considered. We believe that this should be a condition for maintaining tax incentives for large companies with a certain amount of revenue. Now we are discussing this with the IT industry, and I think we will develop a formula by the end of the summer.

Maksut Shadayev: It is clear that this measure should affect companies that are firmly on their feet, which have already been held as IT-Business. There will be no encumbrances for startups, but if the company has already grown, is an active participant in the market and receives benefits, then we will ask it to send part of the proceeds from receiving benefits to improve the quality of education in universities. There is no detailed formula yet, but we are actively discussing it, and I think that we will agree with IT companies. At least, the first discussions show a fairly responsible attitude, and business colleagues, despite the fact that this is associated with additional costs, understand that this will largely determine the future of the companies themselves, their ability to create new promising developments. We expected a very tough reaction, but we did not meet it, on the contrary - companies are constructively discussing with us in what cases, with what amount of revenue, what all mechanics and the administration system should look like. Companies are still readily engaged in this discussion with us.

Maksut Shadayev: I believe that from the point of view of the potential number of IT specialists, we "dispersed the flywheel," there will be no problems with the number. The key question now is how to ensure the quality of IT professionals. When you leave the university, how competitive you are in the market, how much your knowledge allows you to participate not in some very simple things, but in large, promising IT developments.

Maksut Shadayev: A good question, but since the process of providing any public service is a tightly algorithmized process, artificial intelligence is not needed in the public services themselves. There it is important to check the applicant's rights online and if it is confirmed that the applicant meets certain criteria, then they must provide the service to him, and there is no need to think here.

Yes, there are several services where there is an element of subjectivity when making a decision - for example, the architectural and urban planning appearance of the building, when it is planned to be built on the central street, how much the facade of the building will fit into the general architectural landscape. But all other public services are a fully automated process, and artificial intelligence is not needed. It is only necessary that all interdepartmental requests are worked out online.

Maksut Shadayev: We see the possibility of using artificial intelligence in the interfaces of interaction between the applicant and the portal of public services

I believe that great progress is possible here, because we are already close to this, already many types of information are provided online. According to all regulatory provisions, the deadline for working out the request is 5 days, but in fact the most progressive departments work out the requests in seconds, minutes or hours. In my opinion, there is no more day anywhere, 80% of requests are processed in a maximum of several hours.

If we want them to be worked out in full online mode, instantly, then there are corresponding technologies, everyone is switching to the so-called data storefronts, which are easily scalable and can very quickly respond to requests from departments in the SMEV.

Maksut Shadayev: We see the possibility of using artificial intelligence in the interfaces of interaction between the applicant and the portal of public services. Now the applicant must find the service using a search, fill out an application, and so on. And there are very complex services, where there are hundreds of scenarios, a branched tree. Sometimes it is very difficult, the applicant has a problem dealing with it. And here we see the possibility of switching to a humanocentric interface. An ideal portal of services - the applicant sees a dialog box, asks questions and receives answers, in human mode it is carried out through all this complex tree until a decision is made, after which they say "thank you, your application has been sent, the result is this"...

Maksut Shadayev: Yes, I believe that this is our future: one dialog box, both in a mobile device, and on the Internet, and in voice speakers. It seems to me that here we can get a real breakthrough if a person, asking questions, gets fast navigation, the robot will issue everything for him, send him and immediately provide the result. That's what we're striving for.

Maksut Shadayev: Firstly, we are faced with the task of preparing technological solutions that law enforcement officers need when the fact of fraud has already been recorded so that it can be investigated very quickly. Today, processing such requests after the victim contacted the telecom operator sometimes takes weeks. And it is clear that it is very difficult to quickly find a criminal in this situation. Our primary task: if fraud happened, then law enforcement agencies need to very quickly obtain the necessary data in electronic form from banks, telecom operators, digital platforms, and so on, so that this all happens online and takes literally minutes.

Secondly, fuse information systems are needed in order to quickly identify signs of the user's actions of a particular financial or government coercive service. Safety triggers should be triggered to prevent financial losses when a person acts under the psychological pressure of fraudsters. And these fuse triggers have to be very tightly built into the decision mechanics. For example, it is clear that if a user takes a microloan in one place, and immediately takes it in the second and third, this is a clear sign that something is wrong and safety mechanisms should be turned on, stops in the provision of services, new approvals, and so on. And in this sense, we will have to rebuild the entire system of interaction between process participants - law enforcement officers, banks, digital platforms, telecom operators.

Within many of the processes that take place today in a standard way, such fuses will be built in, which will be designed to minimize the possibility of committing incorrect actions by the user of the service under psychological coercion. It's a very big job. Now we have created a working group together with the Central Bank, telecom operators, key digital platforms, law enforcement officers, and will solve these two problems: how to quickly find an attacker, establish the fact of a crime online, and how to minimize the possibility of committing fraud.

Maksut Shadayev: We have long relied on self-regulation, in the same banks, because deceived people come to banks when they try to figure out what happened. Probably, we will develop some kind of regulation, as well as establish technological requirements for internal systems, for the procedure for their interaction with each other.

Maksut Shadayev: Firstly, we are already participating and will continue to participate, together with IT companies. This is the first of our big agreements that if we attract them, we must adjust educational programs for them. In this context, while we are talking about universities, colleges have not yet been discussed.

Maksut Shadayev: Therefore, we ask IT companies to be involved directly in the process of training IT specialists at the time of their training. And if we bring such motivation to them, we believe that they will spend resources to educate, among other things, their software products.

Maksut Shadayev: So far, together with the Ministry of Industry and Trade, we have created an institute of digital attaches - we already have 12 digital attaches who work in permanent missions. Their only task is to promote Russian software products, solutions, equipment in the markets of friendly countries. This is a mechanism that works well. Such a professional specialization of an employee of the Trade Mission allows you to get contact with the local industry and further promote the solution.

Additionally, we discuss two stories. The first is soft loans related to the purchase of Russian solutions for large customers. On this field, we are forced to compete with China. The Chinese are great - they give large preferential loans for large implementations to large industrial, state customers. And we, to be competitive, must also ensure this. The second story is simpler, I think that we will launch it before next year - this is financing part of the costs of exhibition activities, marketing abroad. Probably, we will give grants or centrally purchase sites at large international exhibitions in friendly countries so that Russian companies are represented there.

Maksut Shadayev: In fact, there is a good mechanism - targeted admission, when the company pays for training, takes on part of the costs associated with training. A specialist at the time of admission to the university signs a tripartite agreement - a customer company, an applicant and a university. Accordingly, after completing the university, he is obliged to work under an agreement in the company a certain amount of time. Or return in a certain amount the funds spent on its preparation. This mechanism is already working. This year, we have provided such a mechanism in the service of admission to universities in electronic form. And it seems to us that IT companies can use this mechanism.

But when you invest in training an employee, starting with studying at a university, this is a fairly rigid design. And if after graduation he did not work in the company for a certain amount of time, then he is obliged to compensate for the financial costs that the company incurred for its preparation. There is this mechanism, and so that after the university we told him that he had been working in a certain company for two years - this, of course, will not happen. Targeted admission is a good option for IT companies, especially since you will not spend time on additional training after university, and conduct all training when the future employee is still a student, you can organize practice in the company, additional classes. This is all possible.

Maksut Shadayev: We 100% feel a request for a selling showcase, both in software and in hardware. I believe that in this regard, TAdviser has a cool practice when colleagues make a map of developers, manufacturers in certain areas of IT. On one big page, you can see the entire composition of market players.

We really like this approach, and we want to make such a showcase. We really hope to launch it at the end of the year, because we have a massive request for this from our customers. They do not want to explore the market, look, want to go to a certain resource, see a solution for automation, for example, mining activities, all players with experience in implementation, and so on. And the same for Russian equipment. Yes, we will do this, we feel the requests of the market and will launch it by the end of the year.

Maksut Shadayev: In fact, we have already begun to discuss this issue with the IT industry, but misunderstandings immediately arise: for example, who was put in the first place and why? How did you form the rating? And why is this company above us? We started discussing all these issues with the IT industry, and we say that it would be good if you organized yourself, agreed on some general ranking rules. It is clear that in the case of a window seller, a place in it is very important for the developer, the manufacturer, so we are discussing this.

Maksut Shadayev: We agreed.

Maksut Shadayev: You traditionally ask your question, on all forums...

Maksut Shadayev: We understand that we already have a lot of regulators in terms of digitalization, but it is very fragmentary. We constantly add several of our industry laws - on communications, information, information protection.

We agreed to make a separate large digital code as a set of all legislative regulation, which concerns the issues of digitalization, the development of digital technology, the use of digital technologies in data protection. And we started writing such a digital code. I hope that this will be a fundamental story, very large, complex, complex, since a much larger amount of requirements are imposed on the code. We hope that by the middle of next year we will present the first version, and by the end of next year we will be able to submit to the State Duma platform.

In the meantime, we are solving private problems, a huge number of different legislative initiatives that specifically respond to the requests of the market and industry.

Maksut Shadayev: Each area has its own priorities. For example, marketplaces are a large segment of the Russian economy, and it will require comprehensive regulation. Everything related to cyber fraud, crimes, personal data leakage is also a whole set of legislative initiatives there. Everything related to the transition to domestic solutions, KII is also a lot of things. In general, we have about fifty bills that are in different stages of development, coordination, adoption. We are actively working, but in the IT sphere it is impossible in a different way, because everything changes very quickly with us, and you need to legislate this.

As for the digitalization of the work of legislative bodies, my answer is standard: we are waiting for the appropriate request. Now on the site of the party project you mentioned, perhaps this will be indicated in some more explicit form. So far, unfortunately, we do not have such requests, including from regional parliaments. As soon as they appear, we will be ready to actively help our colleagues, here our position has not changed. We definitely do not want to digitalize in imposition mode.

Maksut Shadayev: We have now identified 15 regional priorities in terms of typing and switching to such advanced standard cloud services. The regions have formed requests for solutions for different areas of activity, and there is no lawmaking there yet, so let's work with the regions.

Maksut Shadayev: Now this regulator is valid for state-owned companies and organizations, and only in part of those facilities that the state-owned companies themselves have classified as CII. At such an object, a transition to a domestic solution should be carried out. The bill that we submitted to the State Duma at the government level agreed on an initiative when private companies and state companies, that is, regardless of the form of ownership, will fall under the requirements of the CII. And what applies to CII facilities will be determined not by the company itself, but by the industry ministry as an industry regulator.

I gave an example with the baggage management system at the airport. Accordingly, the Ministry of Transport, as a regulator of the transport industry, will establish requirements in what cases, for what volume of airports, what volume of traffic, passenger traffic, in which cases these systems will be required to be classified as CII. And, of course, retail, retail will also belong to this area.

Maksut Shadayev: Yes, but starting from a certain scale, when any business begins to have critical significance for the economy and society. We all know the difficult situation with SDEK. It seems to be a commercial logistics company, not the most critical segment of the economy, but this greatly affects consumers.

Maksut Shadayev: Starting with a certain amount of business, as I said above. It is clear that this will not apply to small businesses. The degree of criticality of the systems will be determined based on some parameters, from the scale of the company's activities.

Maksut Shadayev: This is a very important issue, the approach will be flexible. When industry regulators determine certain types of objects as CIIs, the period for switching to domestic solutions will be set depending on the maturity of Russian systems. There will be no single transition period for all companies.

The question is debatable. Industry regulators are interested in the fastest transition and short period, but this is also a matter of responsible approach. I cannot say, for example, in the context of the airport case, that all airports should switch to domestic software in 2025-26. First, you need to understand whether there are the necessary Russian solutions for this that work effectively on such a scale, without loss of quality and functionality. Based on this, we can say that there are 3-5-10 years to switch to Russian solutions. Since all government agencies live in the mode of urgent transition to Russian decisions, then, most likely, such a discussion will take place between business and the developers of the address regulator in order to develop an agreed date and period. It is clear that the business will try to move it to the right as much as possible, and the developers to the left. The regulator will look for a compromise.

Maksut Shadayev: It will not be possible to use foreign solutions at KII - this is a very tough regulator in terms of the obligation to use and acquire only Russian solutions for the transition.