On March 22, the Valdai Club hosted an expert discussion, titled “Competing Technological Platforms in the 21st Century”.
The Russian information technology industry is very young. However, Russia has every opportunity to start an advanced technology platform, say Valdai Club experts Andrei Terekhov and Stanislav Tkachenko, who prepared a report, titled “Russia and Competition Between Technological Platforms: The Political Economy of the ICT Market”. A similar system is now being created by the United States. China claims to be creating its own platform.
The growing competition between technology platforms is contributing to the restructuring of the global economy and technology. For example, until recently, the idea of creating a "sovereign Internet" seemed irrational and technologically difficult to implement. Today, it is gaining more supporters under the pressure of information wars. Given that more than 50% of the Internet's infrastructure - domains and servers - is controlled by the United States, other nations may be vulnerable to possible US sanctions. However, the creation of a "sovereign Internet" requires political will, big financial outlays and the development of breakthrough technologies, which most countries are hardly ready to implement.
Is a diverse array of technology platforms an inevitable alternative to a holistic digital world? Should sovereign states try to build a miniature Internet within their national borders? Would Russia lead in the technology race? These and other questions were answered by the participants of the expert discussion.
Speakers:
- Andrey Bezrukov, Associate Professor, Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO University)
- Vitaly Kozyrev, Professor of Political Science and International Studies, Endicott College of International Studies (USA)
- Andrey Terekhov, Professor, Head of the Department of System Programming, St. Petersburg State University, Director General, LANIT-TERCOM
- Stanislav Tkachenko, Visiting Professor at the Research Centre for the Economies and Politics of Transitional Countries, Liaoning University, Professor at the University of Bologna (Italy)
Moderator:
Working languages: Russian, English.