Despite the growth of high-tech production in Russia, its share in the total volume is changing little. Maria Girich, a researcher at the Gaidar Institute’s International Best Practices Analysis Department, told Nezavisimaya Gazeta about the problems of development of high-tech industries.
“One of the challenges that the production of high-tech products may face is the lack of highly qualified personnel. For example, in the EU more than 40–45% of employees in knowledge-intensive industries are employed in high-tech industries (data for 2022–2023). In addition, the issue is the uneven distribution of high-tech industries in Russia, with Moscow, Moscow Region, St. Petersburg and Tatarstan mainly involved in production, which causes the problem of staff turnover from other regions, as well as the lack of highly qualified personnel in the regions. In addition, the development has been affected by sanctions. Thus, there has been a turnover of personnel from Russia, for example, according to a survey on the portal Habr, among 9,000 Russian IT specialists 8% have already left the country in March 2022, although at the moment the staff is gradually returning,” said the expert.
“In addition, an important issue is the lack of regulation of some technologies, such as artificial intelligence, robotics, quantum technologies, immersive technologies and so on. For example, the question of whether a robot is a source of increased danger as a device that can potentially be dangerous to humans has not been resolved. It is also necessary to ensure transparency of the decision-making process of technologies (like AI and robots) in order to reduce the number of accidents and litigation related to liability for actions committed with the help of technologies, etc.,” Maria Girich noted.
