INTERVIEW: Sber hopes to join top 3 cloud providers by 2024

MOSCOW, May 19 (PRIME) -- SberCloud, a cloud computing provider of Russia’s bank-turned-ecosystem Sber, plans to join the country’s top three of its class by the end of 2023, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer David Rafalovsky told PRIME in an interview published on Wednesday ahead of conference SmartDev.

“By the end of 2023, SberCloud will be one of the three largest cloud providers in Russia, if not of two,” Rafalovsky said, adding that the group will launch a range of cloud products for small companies and individuals soon.

“Previously our cloud technologies were used mainly by mid-sized and large enterprises – SberCloud has been historically focusing on such business, but now we’re opening doors to small business, startups, and individual entrepreneurs,” he said.

Rafalovsky also said that cloud technologies, multi-modal virtual assistants, and artificial intelligence will be the most important technologies of the future.

Sber’s virtual assistant Salut is used by 5 million people a month, and the number of sold smart devices with embedded assistants counts hundreds of thousands, the executive said.

“Last September, we announced two devices where virtual assistants Salut live. At SmartDev, we’ll show one more quite interesting smart device,” Rafalovsky said, adding it will be a development of TV tuner SberBox.

The executive said Sber may launch its smart devices on foreign markets, but puts an emphasis on the home market and Russian-speaking CIS countries.

“There are countries with a huge amount of Russian-speaking citizens, we watch it closely. Perhaps, it makes some economic sense, but, certainly, we focus on the market of Russia and other Russian-speaking countries of the CIS,” he said.

Rafalovsky said Sber successfully pilots self-driving cars, which are developed by its unit Sber Automotive Technologies.

Sber will hold technological conference SmartDev on Thursday.

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