Sberbank, Russia’s largest financial institution with ambitions of becoming the country’s biggest e-commerce player and technology leader, has released GigaChat, a technology that rivals ChatGPT.
GigaChat is currently in an invite-only testing mode, and Sberbank said it is different from ChatGPT and other similar platforms in its ability to communicate more intelligently in Russian.
Russia’s ChatGPT model part of heavy technology investments
Sberbank has invested heavily in technology in recent years, seeking to reduce the country’s reliance on imports. That has become even more important following the economic blockade by Western nations after Russia’s actions in Ukraine.
A Moscow Times report in December 2020 detailed the ambitions of the bank, which is headed by CEO German Gref, the former Economy Minister of the country.
In an investors’ meet, the 179-year-old Sberbank management revealed its plan to invest billions of dollars to become a major player in Russia’s consumer economy, touch the lives of common citizens in multiple ways and become a 500 billion rubles ($6.6 billion at the time) e-commerce company.
“We don’t want to just be boring bankers,” Gref was quoted as saying. “We are playing in a new league. We have become a technology company.”
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