Almost 100% import substitution, the fight against hackers and a billion rubles annually for breakthrough solutions

Tatarstan Digitalisation Minister Airat Khairullin began his report on the results of 2024 and plans for 2025 by outlining five main areas of work in the sphere: communications infrastructure, digitalization of public administration and economic sectors, personnel, development of the IT industry, and a program of breakthrough solutions until 2030.

295 locations will be added to the communications infrastructure

The boundaries of settlements are growing, new microdistricts are appearing — they all need to be provided with communications and the Internet. Every year, mobile operators build 250 and modernise about 800 base stations, Khayrullin said.

“But this is clearly not enough. We often receive requests from residents, motorists, tourists, and business leaders about poor internet or no communication in one or another point in Tatarstan. The Ministry has identified 295 locations where the construction of a new base station is already required right now,” he said.

Then the minister moved on to the topic of import substitution. At the moment, 95% of workstations in all government agencies of Tatarstan have been transferred to domestic software. The remaining 5% are places incompatible with the Russian operating system Astra Linux. They are planned to be transferred in the first half of this year.

Digitalisation of public administration and economic sectors

Khayrullin immediately began this block with the problem: over the past two years, all government services have been available in electronic format, but not all departments consider them in a timely manner. The issue is especially acute in the Vysokaya Gora, Zelenodolsk, Tukay and Pestretsy districts.

“Dear heads, delays in your territory have already become a pattern. I consider it necessary to reconsider the approach to this issue,” the minister warned.

Violations in terms of deadlines are also recorded in the Multi-Functional Centres — in 2024, the municipalities of the republic did not consider 4,611 applications from citizens on time. Personnel is not a problem

The topic of personnel, judging by the speaker's report, is one of the least problematic in the overall structure of the digitalization sphere. The only negative aspect is the shortage of teachers — the deficit of computer science teachers is 205 specialists. At the moment, 521 teachers work in the schools of the republic.

Despite this, the popularity of the subject itself is growing in Tatarstan — schoolchildren began to choose computer science for the Unified State Exam by 17% more often. At the same time, future specialists have a choice regarding education outside of school. The Minister highlighted the successes of the Kazan College of Information Technology, the IT Academy of the IT Park and School 21.

“More than 40% of IT students come from other regions of Russia. It is important to work together with enterprises to retain young IT specialists in Tatarstan. In this regard, the Ministry needs to establish detailed monitoring of the employment of IT graduates in the Republic for more effective planning of personnel policy in the industry,” noted Khayrullin.

Development of the IT industry for export

Work on the development of the IT company industry is also progressing successfully. The total revenue of only two of the largest players in Tatarstan exceeds 7 billion rubles. New companies are also developing in parallel — in 2024, students of the Republic created 292 new startups, and 67% of them specialise in the IT sphere.

“Bringing our solutions and technologies to international markets is another priority area for us. The BRICS Summit confirmed the high interest of delegations in the experience of IT companies in Tatarstan. A number of IT companies today are already successfully exporting their solutions and services: digital twins, blockchain developments or IT support. However, we do not fully utilize the existing potential. In this regard, this year we are planning to open a joint IT centre in Saudi Arabia and Qatar with the aim of centralised export of the best solutions and technologies to the Middle East market,” announced Khayrullin.

However, this is not all — an international program for the development of technological projects of the BRICS and ASEAN countries is planned to be launched soon. Selection stages will be held in the spring and summer, following which the best international IT startups will be able to take part in the acceleration program within the framework of Kazan Digital Week 2025.

Breakthrough IT solutions programme for a Billion

A new programme of breakthrough IT solutions will begin its work this year and will be implemented until 2030, Ayrat Khayrullin announced. It contains five basic and 10 new IT projects.

The programme's goals include:

• increasing the efficiency of public administration by 10%;
• reducing bureaucratic procedures by 15%;
• increasing the share of the digital economy in the region's GRP to 4%;
• creating more than 5 thousand new high-tech jobs.

“The implementation of this program will create a solid foundation for the further dynamic development of Tatarstan. Its implementation requires the allocation of up to a billion rubles annually,” the minister added.

Difficulties in equipping hard-to-reach areas with the Internet

Representatives of the telecom industry also reported on the expansion of the communication network in villages and hard-to-reach areas. Thus, in 2024, communication and high-speed Internet from one of the operators appeared in 95 villages in 34 districts of Tatarstan. In total, about 30,000 people live in them.

“Special attention was paid to the construction of the network along the main sections of key federal highways passing through the region. LTE coverage has been expanded on the federal highway M-12 and in the settlements adjacent to the road in the Kaibitsy, Apastovo and Verkhny Uslon districts near the western border of the republic (direction from Nizhny Novgorod to Kazan), as well as the Laishevo District on the southeastern exit from Kazan,” added Vice President for Interaction with Government Agencies of MTS Andrey Rego.

At the same time, according to him, the construction of the network along the highways causes certain difficulties. They are mainly related to the connection of electricity:

“As a rule, on new highways, which include the M-12, these issues are resolved jointly with the road workers. But if we talk in general about federal highways, of which there are many in Russia, of course, the main problem is connecting to electricity.

There are cases when base stations are on the air, but continue to be serviced by diesel generators. And this, according to Rego, is very expensive.

“We simply cannot objectively cover many areas. We cannot ensure the construction of the base station communication network due to the fact that the connection point is located at a significant distance from the place where the corresponding equipment must be placed,” the speaker explained.

According to Rego, each region has areas that are not covered by federal programs, but are significant for this territory, while on the verge of profitability or even unprofitable for operators. As one of the solutions, Andrey Rego voiced at the board a proposal to look at the experience of other regions (there are already more than 40 of them), which use an investment tax deduction as an additional measure to stimulate the development of communications infrastructure. How does it work? Regional authorities determine areas that require communications coverage and where such a deduction can become an incentive for the implementation of the project. After the project is implemented, the communications operator gets the right to reduce income tax payments by part of the amount of investments made. This issue, as well as the consideration of other options for incentive measures based on the results of the discussion, the rais proposed to include in the minutes of the board's decisions.

Consolidation of forces to protect against cyberattacks

In 2024, the number of cyberattacks on Russia's IT infrastructure increased by 250% — 1.8 billion such incidents were recorded. During the Games of the Future in Tatarstan alone, systems were exposed to threats more than 200 times.

“Not only the quantity, but also the quality of these attacks is growing. In 2024, I would like to separately note the growth of cyberattacks aimed at critical infrastructure. According to various estimates, more than half of them are aimed at critical objects. If we talk about the industries most susceptible to attacks, then the blow falls on industry, the IT sector, banks and the public sector,” Innostage CEO Aydar Guzairov outlined the scale.

Despite all the efforts of hackers, the Games of the Future were successful. It is events like these that confirm that the Russian cybersecurity sphere is regularly improving and learning to cope with problems. “If a hacker attacks, and ordinary people did not notice it, then everything is fine,” the expert summed up.

“The agenda of cyber resilience for business, for the republic and the country as a whole is now becoming more relevant than ever. If we look at the near future, we understand that the trends of automation and digitalisation lead us to even greater use of artificial intelligence systems, robotics, unmanned transport, and so on. On this path, we will active counteraction from intruders, and in order to be able to respond to these challenges, it is necessary to change the attitude towards digital sustainability,” said Guzairov.

He voiced the initiative to make Tatarstan the first cyber-resistant region in Russia, consolidating the forces of government agencies, leading IT companies and specialized universities to fight hackers.

“The topic is serious, we saw the scale during BRICS. If the systems did not work, we could have serious problems. The idea is accepted, let's consider it in more detail,” approved Rais of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov.

Revenue increased by 17%, to 225 billion rubles

At the end of the board, Rais of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov also spoke. He called the IT sector one of the key sectors of the republican economy. Thus, according to him, over the past 6 years, revenue in this area has increased by 17%, reaching 225 billion rubles.

“Tatarstan, as a leading region in the IT sector, faces serious challenges for the further development of the industry. In addition to federal support measures, we have decided to allocate a billion over five years to implement a programme of breakthrough IT solutions in the republic aimed at improving the quality of the industry. The government needs to approve this program in the near future,” he said.

Minnikhanov also focused on several aspects of Khayrullin’s report:

• Communications: “Tatarstan is a tourist region. 4.4 million tourists last year. It is very important that mobile communications and the Internet work well in all our key hospitality points. We need to work on this point. Ivanov (Editor’s note: Chairman of the State Tourism Committee Sergey Ivanov), Khayrullin, move in this direction.”
• Infrastructure: “IT Park and Innopolis are currently working in the segment of supporting small and medium-sized companies. Our task is to work at the federal level, to scale up large projects. This work is important.”
• Cybersecurity: “There are questions about telephone fraud. I appeal to telecom operators: we must actively work with law enforcement agencies and introduce modern technologies to prevent such crimes. We need to educate the population. Every day, educated, literate people give money to scammers with their own hands! Well, okay, they gave their money. They formalise debts and sell apartments.”