In the previous publication, we touched on several important issues, including technological sovereignty, which has become one of the most relevant for Russia due to the new geopolitical situation that has arisen since February 24, 2022. This time, the discussion of this topic will continue both in a general strategic context, and from the point of view of the contribution which can and should be made towards the country's technological sovereignty by Russian universities, the Big University of Tomsk and specifically Tomsk State University.
— Professor Galazhinskiy, recently the media has continually questioned Russia's need for sovereignty, including its technological sovereignty. There is a feeling that all other countries are technologically independent while our country struggles with these large dependency issues. What is your opinion on this?
- I believe that now is when all countries, including the most developed ones, have suddenly realized that they too have these big problems. For example, one of the latest analytical reports by American experts at the Carnegie Endowment speaks of the evolution of thinking and politics in the field of technologization taking place in the world today. The evolution goes from neutral globalism to techno-nationalism. The report, commissioned by the German Foreign Ministry, also says the world is moving away from a globally interconnected Internet towards growing technological nationalism, digital disintegration, and new areas of influence. The events of recent years related to the pandemic, the US elections, the coup attempt in Belarus, and the military operation in Ukraine have shown that it is technology that has become the main arena of interstate struggle. Therefore, each country is now striving for the maximum possible insularity and independence in relation to this. Such a 180-degree turn leads to the deconstruction of even the strongest and seemingly inseparable technological alliances, particularly the US and China. On the other hand, it is obvious to everyone that the complete segregation of national technology sectors entails no less damage to the economies than their complete openness to foreign partner states, which can at any moment become outstripping competitors and even outright opponents. In this situation, governments now have to urgently review the principles of cooperation with other countries in the organization of supply chains, the development of new technologies, and the production of high-tech products. Therefore, the problem of ensuring technological sovereignty while maintaining and developing the economy is a headache not only for Russia.
— As Tolstoy wrote, every family is unhappy in its own way. Apparently, so too is every country concerned about technological sovereignty in its own way. Some need to share what they have acquired and some need to start from scratch. What seems to be the specific problems for Russia?
— There are several of them. And some of them arise from the peculiarities of the Russian mentality. We always want to hope that the worst will not happen. We tend to believe that if we treat others well, they in turn will do the same. It takes a lot of time for us to "gear up" and so on. For more than 20 years, we have been conscientious consumers of American and Chinese computers, gadgets, and software, aware that we voluntarily put ourselves under the round-the-clock control carried out by those who produced them and that at any moment they can disconnect us from their technological ecosystem. Here is one of the many examples that can be given on this topic. Recently I visited the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation. There I noticed that none of the large plasma monitors for electronic presentations were working. The screens blacked out simultaneously after the American company Cisco made its regular software update. Did we know that it could happen? Yes. But we did not believe that this would begin to happen right away. Meanwhile, the government of the Russian Federation repeatedly questioned whether it was necessary to switch to domestic software, but each time it was “extinguished” by the argument that switching was too costly in terms of resources and that we still had time. However, life has once again confirmed that the solution of issues related to maintaining the critical information infrastructure at the proper level is never premature.
Some of the risks of using foreign software, which have been discussed for many years, have already occurred after the military operation in Ukraine began. Western vendors have begun disconnecting our plants from cloud platforms, without which the machines cannot work. In response to all this, on March 30, the Presidential Decree “On measures to ensure technological independence” was issued. It states that companies and organizations related to critical infrastructure are not allowed to purchase foreign hardware and software without the consent of the relevant government agencies. From January 1, 2025, the use of foreign software at key facilities will be prohibited. In addition, the President of the Russian Federation has instructed the government to implement, within six months, an entire range of measures to replace imported electronics with domestic ones at the most important critical infrastructure facilities.
- Some experts seriously believe that Russia's lagging behind the high pace of digitalization, in a sense, saved our country from complete digital dependence. Otherwise, our key enterprises would already be managed through the “digital twins” located on American or Scandinavian servers. And since Russia would have lost control of these software and standards, the collective West would have completely paralyze our entire industry and state administrative structures. Do you agree with this extreme point of view?
- I do not see anything extreme in it. In certain situations, falling behind means not only less dependence on pioneers, but also great potential. There is an Arabic saying: "At a sharp turn, the last camel becomes the first." Alexander Gerschenkron, a Russian-born American economic historian and professor at Harvard University, developed the theory of the “advantages of backwardness” around 70 years ago. 
According to this theory, the least developed countries in some way can learn from the mistakes of the leading countries and use their achievements, including the latest technological innovations. In addition, trailing countries, as a rule, have a stronger ideological motivation to search for meaningful solutions, which lead to big breakthroughs in economic and social transformations and the highest rate of intensification of high-tech production afterwards. Actually, this is exactly what China demonstrated. At the time its potential was so underestimated by the United States. But now it is Russia's turn to part with the technological dependence on the West, which exists in a number of areas, and to leap forward. In the military sphere, such a breakthrough has already been made.
- Do you think the deadlines and the tasks themselves are realistic?
- If we again proceed from the peculiarities of the Russian mentality, after we have "gearing up" for quite a long time, now, after the decree of the President of the Russian Federation, the phase of "letting it rip" has begun. As far as I know, at present, the work of ensuring the security of critical infrastructure is going on around the clock: Priority issues are being addressed. On May 20, at a meeting of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, it was said that the pressure of sanctions on our country has significantly reduced the confidence of Russians in foreign-made equipment and software. In this regard, as well as in regard to the ongoing cyber attacks on objects of key infrastructure of the Russian Federation, the Security Council approved the draft principles of a new state policy in the field of security with a special focus on the organization of research and development in the field of AI and quantum computing. Among other things, it was noted that special attention will be paid to professional training and competence development specialists in the field of information security. If all management structures and relevant organizations and enterprises continue to increase the pace of decision-making and implementation, then the deadlines set by the President of the Russian Federation will be met.
- Does all this mean that Russia will re-create its own critical infrastructure?
- Of course not. Critical infrastructure is a broader concept than critical information infrastructure. It has existed in our country for a long time and includes various blocks although in the information age, all of them, one way or another, are tied to digital and computer technologies. But there are some key areas that have long been successfully mastered by Russian IT specialists; for example, protection against virus attacks. Kaspersky Lab is known all over the world. As for domestic critical infrastructure, it certainly requires constant attention and improvement and not only in terms of the technologies themselves, but also in terms of the critical and emerging technologies list that includes 27 types of critical technologies. It has not been revised since 2011.
Updating has begun at the initiative of Valery Falkov, the Minister of Higher Education and Science of the Russian Federation. And we, as a university, must also deal with this very difficult task. Until relatively recently, advanced countries focused on the development and production of critical technologies emerging as a result of new scientific discoveries. Now the trend has changed: critical technologies are determined on the basis of constant monitoring of industrial sectors and on what is being born there.
Who can we look up to here? For example, Australia, which currently prioritizes more than 60 types of critical technologies, sees special prospects in the quantum industry, hydrogen energy, blockchain, mobile communications based on 5G and 6G standards, advanced imaging systems, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and robotics. There is also a special program to promote critical technologies in their national interests, despite the fact that Australia is a member of the tripartite military alliance, AUCUS, which includes the US and the UK. At the same time, Australia is in constant dialogue with its partners in the Indo-Pacific Quad block: India, the United States and Japan, monitoring the state of critical infrastructures not only of these countries, but also of its strategic competitors; primarily, China. To this end, a special benchmarking working group has been created under the Quad block to develop methods for studying the experience of competing countries and the implementation in the practice of member countries of this block. In general, Russia has an example to follow in maintaining and developing its critical infrastructure.
- It is generally accepted that before adopting any experience, one needs to conduct a SWOT analysis of the state of their systems and subsystems. Otherwise, this experience may not take root. Does Russia have time for such an internal audit?
- This audit of the state of Russia's critical infrastructure and potential, including information and defense components, in my opinion, has already been carried out in detail and with a fairly high degree of objectivity by American and Western European experts. Relatively recently or literally on the eve of the military operation in Ukraine several analytical reports were published in open sources.
If we ignore all the anti-Russian ideological attacks and contrivances in these reports and focus only on the analytics, then we will have the very necessary SWOT-analysis of our critical information infrastructure, from which we can build in order to move quickly to the stage of setting goals and finding appropriate resources to achieve them. In addition, it is always useful to look at ourselves through the eyes of yesterday's business partners, who today have become "unfriendly" or outright enemies.
- I wonder how foreign "unfriendly" experts assess our Russian critical infrastructure and critical technologies?
— There are really a lot of interesting things in their reports. It analyzes in detail the current positions of Russia in terms of its self-sufficiency in the production and use of, say, basic processors and equipment for 5G cellular communications, software, operating systems, and other things. Therefore, I highly recommend that you read the original sources. But speaking in general, the picture turns out to be very contradictory, which is quite consistent with the real situation. At the same time, foreign experts admit that over the past 10 years the West, in connection with the prevailing stereotype of Russia as a “technologically backward country”, has not paid due attention to its resolute desire for digital sovereignty. In this regard, there is a serious gap in the scientific analysis of Russian development programs in the context of the 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR), including their military-strategic aspects. In addition, Russia has every reason and opportunity to hide its advanced technologies that are under development. Therefore, drawing up an absolutely accurate picture of the existing and future Russian global tools, according to Western experts, has become an impossible task for them. And this is very good for us. Nevertheless, there are many aspects on which foreign analysts have developed quite clear opinions and agree. They also agree on the main conclusion: An eye needs to be kept on Russia, given that its joining the “technological race” is not so much a choice as an existential necessity and that the development of 4IR technologies can be non-linear. This means that Russia's clear successes, for example, in the field of artificial intelligence can immediately bring it to the first positions in the global technology sector.
– Sounds reassuring.
– Yes, but first we need to achieve these clear successes. Today, the critical infrastructure of our country and the development of critical technologies are assessed by foreign analysts ambiguously. According to transnational patent applications, Russia's share in the field of nanotechnology, information security, big data, and robotics is quite high. However, in the global context, Russia is still in catch-up mode.
– Now we have come to the question of how Tomsk State University is ready to participate in ensuring the technological sovereignty of its country.
– TSU is already working in many fields of Russian critical infrastructure. This includes communications, information security systems, security systems of a new type, mathematical modeling of epidemiological safety, control terminals of a new type, aircraft, software for radio electronics, protective coatings for electronics, various detectors, gas analyzers, reagents for biotechnologies and biomedicine. Our work also encompasses biotechnologies for oil decomposition, low-tonnage chemistry, pharmaceuticals, anti-viral vaccines, implants, anti-adhesion materials, ground-penetrating radars, new products for the oil and gas sector of non-combustible materials, devices for cleaning water bodies, tomography of large objects, wildfire prevention systems, techno-data analysis systems for prevention of accidents at enterprises and other organisations. Certain practical results have already been achieved in all of these areas: specific developments have received high marks from experts, including those at international and domestic industry exhibitions. Most of them have been patented and put into production. Our specialists are ready to go further in these directions.
At present, we are witnessing new directions of research emerge as they are developed by us together with other Russian universities and the country's largest enterprises. In 2019, TSU created its Center for Quantum Technologies, and it has already taken its first confident steps in creating lasers based on quantum systems and quantum-sized structures for receiving devices.
Quite recently, the opening of the Center for Neurosciences took place at TSU, which, we hope, will also have its say in the field of advanced technologies.
– Listening to you, we understand that sometimes it is very useful to take such "slices" of the current activities of the university in order to understand the true scale and variety of the work being done. It can be seen from the above that our university, like other leading universities of the State Development Program "Priority 2030", is really engaged in a very wide range of areas and even more specific tasks, while achieving high results.
– Yes, but the time has come when it is necessary to create integral sovereign technological packages, which I mentioned earlier. Building a package is a very big job of analyzing and linking and understanding what is critical or non-critical. So far, various ministries and sectorial organizations are doing this rather spontaneously. I would like to note that it was Tomsk State University that first spoke about a holistic approach to the development of the main blocks of critical infrastructure: no one in our country had raised this question before.
In conclusion, I would like to say that in general, both the older and younger generations are ready for difficulties and are able to cope with them. The main thing is to properly organize and inspire everyone. But given the existing and potential resource capacity of our country there may be no deprivation. I fully agree with Andrey Bezrukov that in the next 20 years basic values and needs will be important and that all countries of the world will be concerned with only three questions: how to keep themselves warm, fed, and protected. For each, Russia has a "trump card": its own energy, agriculture, and military-industrial complex. There are also research centers, providing constant updates and export potentials. That is, we can provide not only our basic needs, but also help others to do the same. It is from these prerequisites that I propose we build our joint optimistic future.
The conversation was transcribed by Irina Kuzheleva-Sagan