At SPIEF, Sberbank’s First Deputy Chairman of the Executive Board Alexander Vedyakhin told Gulf Today that the UAE is a key partner for Sber in the Middle East. The country is seen not only as an important economic player but also as a pivotal platform for technological dialogue and knowledge exchange in the field of AI.
Commenting on the prospects for cooperation, Alexander Vedyakhin emphasized Sber’s pragmatic approach: any partnership must be technology‑rich, comply with regulatory requirements, and deliver tangible benefits to both sides. Russian expertise in AI, digital platforms, fintech, and cybersecurity could be of greatest interest to partners from the UAE.
Russian technologies at major UAE events
In 2025, Sber significantly strengthened its presence at the UAE’s flagship tech events. At GITEX Global in Dubai, the company showcased a stand featuring cutting‑edge products, including the GigaChat business‑oriented neural network model, the GigaStudio website generation service, and the SymFormer music model with Arabic language and vocal support.
At ICOMP 2025 in Abu Dhabi, Sber hosted its own session dedicated to the latest AI trends and presented unique tech solutions: the TSForesight library for time series forecasting, the Ride framework for route optimization, the LightAutoDS‑Tab multi‑agent system, and the 3MDBench medical benchmark.
Reciprocal interest: UAE startups in Sber’s accelerator
The interest in cooperation is mutual. Last year, the sixth wave of the Sber500 accelerator received more than 1,900 applications from 42 countries. The UAE ranked among the top 5 countries by application count. Moreover, six of the 25 finalists in the accelerator were international teams, including startups from the UAE that passed a rigorous selection process and completed a 7‑week programme with international mentors.
Prospects for language model integration
When asked about potential partnerships with Arabic language models, Alexander Vedyakhin confirmed Sber’s interest in developing bilingual services. GigaChat’s international expansion should be driven by adaptation to local languages, cultures, and regulatory requirements.
Alexander Vedyakhin, first deputy chairman of the Executive Board, Sberbank:
We see that the development of large language models will increasingly be driven not just by competition between individual solutions but also by their adaptation to languages, cultures, and the practical needs of specific markets. For GigaChat, the international track is interesting precisely through this lens, and the UAE is no exception. Here, it’s not enough to simply translate a model from one language to another — we need to ensure high‑quality understanding of context, terminology, regulatory requirements, and cultural specifics
These solutions require serious technological, legal, and partnership work. But as a dialogue track with partners from the UAE, this is certainly of interest to us. For Sber, it’s important that such initiatives have clear practical value and can be scaled into real‑world products.