Russian businesses turn to Chinese AI models as Western options dwindle

In a development that underscores the deepening technological entanglement between Moscow and Beijing, Russian businesses have sharply increased their reliance on Chinese artificial intelligence models, according to data provided to the Kommersant newspaper, with demand surging as Western sanctions and security concerns restrict access to U.S.-developed systems and complicate efforts to cultivate a domestic "sovereign AI" industry. Customers of Russia's largest cloud platforms have dramatically expanded their use of models including Qwen, DeepSeek, GLM and Kimi throughout 2026, with MTS Web Services Cloud reporting that its clients consumed 400 billion tokens generated by Chinese models in the first half of the year—a figure eleven times higher than the total for all of 2025—with Qwen alone accounting for 261.1 billion tokens, followed by GLM with 91.2 billion and Kimi with 81.4 billion. The trend is further evidenced by Yandex AI Studio, where Qwen emerged as the most popular foreign model, commanding a 21.2 per cent share of token consumption, while DeepSeek ranked second with 13.5 per cent and U.S.-developed GPT-OSS models accounted for a comparatively modest 7.5 per cent, and Cloud.ru recorded an 18-fold increase in AI model use during the first eight months of 2026 compared with the same period last year.

The preference for Chinese models, according to industry observers, is rooted in their cost-effectiveness and the perceived security advantages they offer, as they can be deployed on domestic Russian infrastructure, enabling businesses to retain control over sensitive data—a consideration of paramount importance for companies handling classified or commercially confidential information. Artur Samigullin, head of Yandex AI Studio, told Kommersant that consumption of Chinese models had increased more than fivefold over the past year, while Alexander Tugov, director of Selectel's AI division, noted that the primary format involved deploying the model on Russian infrastructure, ensuring that data remained within company systems and rendering the choice of model purely technical, independent of security requirements. Dmitry Cheklov, founder of the Hybrid advertising technology ecosystem, observed that many businesses were principally guided by operating costs, an area where Chinese models offered a clear competitive advantage over their Western counterparts, a factor that has accelerated their adoption across multiple sectors.

The rise of Chinese AI coincides with ambitious Russian efforts to create a domestic market for what officials term "sovereign AI," with proposed regulations stipulating that Russian models would be assessed for compliance with the country's officially defined "traditional spiritual and moral values," and only those passing the review would be eligible for designation as national or sovereign, granting access to government procurement contracts, significant IT projects, and state-held data. However, the growing dependence on Chinese technology has exposed the difficulties facing Moscow's aspiration to develop competitive homegrown systems, a challenge articulated by Natalya Kaspersky, head of the cybersecurity company InfoWatch, who told the RTVI television network in July that Russia would struggle to catch up with the United States and China in developing large foundation models due to the vast financial, computing, and energy resources required. "When you are walking along the same tracks on which trains are traveling, you have essentially no chance of catching up with that train," Ms Kaspersky observed, adding that she did not believe Russia had any realistic chance of creating something groundbreaking in large foundation models, a sentiment that underscores the formidable obstacles confronting the Kremlin's technological ambitions.

The trend has been further complicated by reports that Sberbank CEO German Gref said last month that Russian tech giant Yandex was further training Qwen as the basis for its AI development, though Yandex later denied that claim, highlighting the fluidity and sensitivity of corporate strategies in this rapidly evolving sector. As Russian businesses continue to turn to Chinese models as a pragmatic solution to immediate operational needs, the longer-term implications for Moscow's sovereignty in artificial intelligence remain uncertain, with the nation appearing increasingly reliant on foreign technology even as it pursues policies designed to foster domestic independence—a paradox that lies at the heart of Russia's contemporary technological predicament.