“It's time for Sber to build its own IT center in Kazan” — Tatarstan Minister of Digital Development Airat Khairullin
On July 10, the Minister of Digital Development of Public Administration, Information Technology and Communications of the Republic of Tatarstan, Airat Khairullin, met with the heads and representatives of IT companies at the Bashir Rameev IT Park. During the official part in the conference hall, participants could directly ask questions to the minister, then everyone was invited to an informal meeting on the roof of the IT Park.
Those who were unable to ask questions during the event could leave them in the comments to the post in Airat Khairullin's Telegram channel – the answers to them are already published by the minister. We have collected here the minister's answers to some interesting questions that were asked during the meeting.
Question from the audience: We are talking about digitalization, but today AI cannot read some official documents on the websites of the RT departments – they are uploaded as scans.
Airat Khairullin: AI can read text from pdf files. Let me recommend you services that can do this.
Question from the audience: We want to implement the concept of a private IT park in Naberezhnye Chelny. We need land in the old part of the hydroelectric power station and help with taxes. Who should we contact?
Airat Khairullin: It's a cool story to build technology parks with private money: the investor takes on certain obligations, the authorities can provide a land plot, tax preferences can also be provided. Let's talk.
Question from the audience: We create solutions for the oil and gas industry. IT today is not only software, but also smart hardware. Can our engineers also be placed in IT parks?
Airat Khairullin: We have the Innopark project – essentially, production facilities. Also, at 52 Peterburgskaya, we launched premises in the “people's garage” format.
Question from the audience: In December 2022, we opened our SberHub in the Bashir Rameev IT Park. Since then, our team has expanded significantly, held a series of events, and teach at KFU and Innopolis. Our office is full, there are not enough seats. When will new ones be provided?
Airat Khairullin: Let Sber build its own IT center. With such revenue volumes, it's time!
Question from the audience: We have developed an AI service that imitates psychologists. The company is Moscow-based, is it interesting for Tatarstan? For example, to help young people or SVO participants?
Airat Khairullin: Leave your contacts. We have a project called “I am a schoolboy”. But here you need to correctly structure the monetization issue – understand how profitable it will be for you. Or think about other options.
Question from the audience: What does the government think about crypto?
Airat Khairullin: I am not authorized to comment here, this is the Central Bank's area. My opinion: such things should be approached carefully, with careful control at each stage.
Question from the audience: IT grant requirements often specify n-number of employees on staff, while startups are more willing to attract self-employed people and individual entrepreneurs. What should we do?
Airat Khairullin: We will discuss this issue with our federal colleagues.
Question from the audience: Why not open IT parks in rural areas for downshifting IT specialists, on par with fitness centers?
Airat Khairullin: Urban infrastructure will never be able to compete with rural infrastructure. The agency can consider such a proposal only if the initiators provide a high-quality justification for the prospects of their proposal (there is already allocated land, proven demand, etc.).
Question from the Telegram channel: The idea of the LLM incubator seemed interesting. For example, here is a topic for development within the LLM: forecasting financial and economic indicators, including at the level of macroeconomic policy. Are you interested in it? Is the state, represented by the ministry or development institutions (subdivisions of the ministry), ready to invest in this story?
Airat Khairullin: The state does not plan to invest. At the same time, we are ready to organize a “soft infrastructure” and help find markets, clients and attract financing.
Question by phoneegram-channel: Is it planned to build semiconductor factories in Tatarstan? Specifically, at the level of microcircuits, transistors, and so on.
Airat Khairullin: A large microelectronics cluster is planned. Last year, ICL built a motherboard manufacturing plant with a capacity of 1 million units per year.
