The second supercomputer and artificial intelligence AI upgrades form a part of Sberbank's enhanced offerings of digital services such as cloud computing and virtual assistant software, Chief Technology Officer David Rafalovsky told Reuters on Wednesday.
Russia's largest lender is investing more in non-banking services as it shifts towards offering more technology systems, even last year dropping bank from its logo. On Thursday, the Christofari Neo, a second supercomputer, was revealed to meet internal and external demand for AI that went over expectations.
The supercomputer was named after the bank's first ever customer 180 years ago, Nikolai Christofari.
The lender, alongside other Russian firms including Yandex and Tinkoff, is developing a so-called ecosystem of services beyond its core business, something Sberbank says is needed to combat traditional banks" shrinking margins.
The central bank has said banks would have to create additional buffers if ecosystem investments exceed 30% of their total capital.
Rafalovsky said that Sberbank, which includes e-commerce, cyber security and cloud services, had room to continue investing hundreds of millions of dollars in technology.
We're not restricted in terms of ability to invest in terms of capital, Rafalovsky said in an interview. We invested more than a year ago, and our investments in IT infrastructure and products went up. He said Sberbank's primary technical constraint was attracting the best information technology IT talent.
The most commercially significant update, Rafalovsky said, was ML Space Private, an AI development toolkit that third parties can use without fully connecting to SberCloud.
He said that it was significant for the many Russian firms that may be unable to run sensitive government data through Sberbank's commercial cloud platform.
Sberbank, which is majority owned by Russia's government, has assets of $521.5 billion and a market value of about $113 billion.
German Gref, Chief Executive Officer, said Sberbank was eyeing expanding its digital offering in other European countries, while Rafalovsky said that spin offs of digital assets were possible in time.
He said that we're set up to be able to do it when the time is right. The timing of doing this is as important as having something to spin off.