Putin, speaking at a conference on AI (artificial intelligence) in Moscow this week, said that AI could be "one of the largest technological projects in human history" and "we cannot allow critical dependence on foreign systems. For Russia, this is a question of state, technological, and, one could say, value sovereignty. Therefore, our country must possess a complete range of its own generative artificial intelligence technologies and products".
He said the country had to develop data centres to "allow us to guarantee data sovereignty, so that user information remains within the borders of Russia … the most critical and fundamental task is to ensure a constant, stable, and reliable energy supply for data centres".
"This is a serious challenge, but it is one we are equipped to overcome, as we are perhaps the only country in the world currently capable of, ready for, and already producing and utilising small nuclear power plants … in locations with large nuclear units, specific research and preparation can be carried out. However, to guarantee the rapid delivery of necessary information - with timeframes, as I have just been informed, measured in seconds and fractions of a second - and to ensure operational efficiency, small nuclear power plants can also be deployed. The imperative is to execute this swiftly," he said.
He said that the country plans to build 38 nuclear power units over the next two decades, doubling current nuclear capacity and he said the "growing potential of our domestic nuclear energy sector will enable us to consistently expand the computational capabilities required for artificial intelligence".
Demand for 24/7, reliable and carbon-free power for data centres was cited in the latest World Energy Outlook from the International Energy Agency as one of the key drivers for its forecast that global nuclear power capacity is set to increase by at least one-third to 2035.
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