Russia's Sberbank Plans AI Research With China As Deep Seeek Advances

JAKARTA Sberbank, Russia's largest bank, plans to collaborate with Chinese researchers on a joint artificial intelligence (AI) project. This move was announced by Sberbank's First Deputy CEO, Alexander Vedyakhin, amid the increasingly rapid development of AI in China, especially after DeepSeek startups rocked the market with cheaper AI models compared to competitors from the United States.

The cooperation between Russia and China is nothing new. The two countries that established strategic partnerships with the concept of "without boundaries" have long discussed AI collaboration, including in the military field. However, details of this collaboration are rarely published.

Under German Gref's leadership, Sberbank has undergone a major transformation from a bureaucratic Soviet-era heritage bank to a leader in AI development in Russia. In 2023, the bank launched their AI model, GigaChat, as a competitor to the West AI system.

"Sberbank has many scientists. Through them, we plan to conduct a joint research project with researchers from China," Vedyakhin was quoted as saying by VOI from Reuters. However, he did not specify which institutions in China would be invited to cooperate.

Hangzhou startup DeepSek has become the center of world attention after successfully developing a higher-quality AI model at a lower cost than giant companies like Nvidia. DeepSek's success strengthens Sberbank's strategy which focuses more on technical innovation than massive investments in computing infrastructure.

The existence of the Russian-China AI alliance is certainly a big concern for the West. The United States and its allies have long seen these two countries as a major threat to global competition, especially in the AI sector.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping share similar world views, namely that the West is experiencing setbacks and decades. At the same time, China is trying to challenge US supremacy in various fields, including AI, quantum computing, synthetic biology, to military power.

The efforts of Western countries in isolating Russia due to the war in Ukraine have actually made relations between Moscow and Beijing even closer. In fact, on recent occasions, Putin called China Russia's "catty".

"China is Russia's partner on many international issues. The level of scientific cooperation between the two countries can be improved through the collaboration of our scientists," added Vedyakhin.

Putin has ordered Sberbank to strengthen AI cooperation with China and other BRICS countries to challenge US dominance. However, how advanced the Russian AI project is still a mystery because many of them are confidential.

Like China, Russia faces major challenges in developing domestic computing capacity due to Western sanctions limiting imports of the latest hardware. The country is trying to find alternative solutions to stay competitive in the global AI race.

Currently, Russia ranks 31 out of 83 countries in the UK-based global AI index Tortoise Media. Russia lags behind the United States, China, and even fellow BRICS members such as India and Brazil.

Vedyakhin revealed that after comparing the DeepSeeek AI model with the most advanced GigaChat MAX model AI from Sberbank they found that China's models were superior in scientific tasks. However, in the banking sector, GigaChat is still able to compete or even better.

One of DeepSee's interesting aspects is its transparency, which is different from OpenAI's closed approach. According to Vedyakhin, this openness attracts many AI communities to participate in its development.

"Sberbank has made most of its AI platforms publicly accessible, including Kandinsky's text-to-image model and GigaChat Lite's basic model," he explained.

With DeepSek's success in showing that technical innovation could outperform billions of dollars in infrastructure, the future of the Russia-China AI alliance is increasingly interesting to observe. If this collaboration develops further, it is not impossible that the dominance of US technology will be increasingly threatened in AI's global competition.