Russia Offers AI Model to Global South Countries

Russia is offering an AI model to countries in Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Oceania that want to develop their own systems and reduce reliance on Western technology. A Sberbank executive told Reuters that demand exists among states concerned about privacy and content controls in models from the United States and China.

The bank positions the offering as sovereign AI that can be customized for local needs.

The model is described as smaller and more specialized than current large systems. Officials said it will not require billions of parameters and will focus on specific tasks such as credit scoring. Sberbank noted that the model will initially be slower and less capable than systems from Anthropic, Grok, or DeepSeek, but will match the values of the countries that adopt it.

Russia has stated it is one of three nations able to build domestic AI models for government and defense use. Sanctions have limited access to advanced chips, prompting discussions with China about hardware supplies. The bank estimates AI could raise productivity by 11 to 22 percent in parts of the Russian economy and shift labor toward construction and other sectors.