A sign board with the logo of software firm NTechLab is on display at the company's offices in Moscow.
The founders of the artificial intelligence company NtechLab said they resigned due to disagreements with the company's management and investors about projects in Russia.
One founder left Russia in December 2021, the other left in March 2022, shortly after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, they said.
The two founders said they were talking about facial recognition in Russia after a special report on Tuesday about Russian law enforcement officials' use of facial recognition to identify and detain protesters and opposition activists. NtechLab s FindFace is one of the algorithms that powers Moscow's facial recognition system.
The Russian founders Artem Kukharenko and Alexander Kabakov said the main disagreement was that they wanted NtechLab to end all work in Russia and relocate all Russian-based employees, while the company s management wanted to continue operating in Russia.
Most shareholders supported management, so we had no other option but to resign from the company, Kukharenko told Reuters.
The founders said they started discussions about ending all projects in Russia after opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned in August 2020.
Kukharenko, who was head of research at NtechLab before he was resigned, said that the country was moving towards a disaster, although no one could have imagined that the country would start a war.
Kukharenko and Kabakov didn't give more details about the disagreement or why they wanted to end NtechLab's work in Russia.
After Russia invaded Ukraine, they said they signed an anti-war petition.