PRESS: Econ ministry calls for creating 2 bln rbl Russia’s GitHub

MOSCOW, Jan 20 (PRIME) -- The Economic Development Ministry has suggested creating a local analogue of Microsoft’s open source storage service GitHub for 2.1 billion rubles in case Russia is cut off GitHub and other global repositories over sanctions, business daily Kommersant reported on Monday.

A ministry spokesperson said the idea is relevant and is one of “the key measures to ensure conditions for creation of open libraries of artificial intelligence” under national strategy for development of artificial intelligence until 2030, approved by President Vladimir Putin in October 2019. The project has not been approved by the government yet.

A local analogue is needed because of a threat of disconnection of the country from foreign storage facilities, and the Russian repository could host copies of the most popular programs from foreign open sources.

The facility could appear by 2021, according to the initiative.

GitHub is the biggest service of hosting and joint development of IT projects, uniting a storage of more than 100 million open source projects and a social network for developers. The service is used by more than 40 million developers across the globe and more than 1.5 million companies, including Apple, Amazon and Google.

(61.5333 rubles – U.S. $1)

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