Variations in Spending on Artificial Intelligence Deepening Gap Between Moscow and Federal Subjects, ‘Club of Regions’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 3 – The gap in incomes between Moscow, on the one hand, and the federal subjects beyond the ring road, on the other, continues to expand, the latest reason being the vastly different amounts of money being devoted to the development of artificial intelligence (AI) in the two places.

            Last year, the Club of Regions says, Russian spending on AI increased by 95 percent, but almost all of that went to Moscow where the largest businesses and government bureaucracies are located, leaving the regions ever further behind on  this metric (club-rf.ru/news/65522).

            Of the 176.1 billion rubles Russia spent on AI last year, only 14.3 billion – less than ten percent – was invested in the regions, the portal says, a figure that means they will fall even further behind the capital than they now are because of the increasing importance of this factor in development. 

            In some federal subjects such as Ingushetia and the Jewish Autonomous Region, spending on AI was less than one million rubles – about 13,000 US dollars – and in three – the Komi Republic, the Nenets AD and the Chukchi AD – there was no investment in AI at all during 2025.