The Open Internet Model Is Dying in the Global Economy: How to Develop the IT Industry in New Realities?

I worked in the banking sector for over ten years, including as Chairman of the Board of Otkritie Broker and Vice President of the Bank. I saw how global systems operated at full speed. Then came the COVID-19 pandemic: the world experienced great turbulence and a sense of the decline of the globalization that had been known for decades.

Now, in 2026, we are seeing how the conflict in the Middle East threatens to damage the internet cables running along the floor of the Persian Gulf, as well as destroy data centers in the region. And these dangers are dangers for the global financial market as a whole. Many in the world work with US cloud services, but the infrastructure of these services includes data centers in Middle Eastern countries.

It is obvious that every country needs a plan to ensure the uninterrupted operation of its critical digital infrastructure — which includes payment services and financial services. This means that components such as energy generation, data centers, and cloud services must be domestic, national. The internet must also be "our own."

This is not about abandoning global cooperation with partners. It's about something else: we need to be invulnerable — meaning that the country's digital infrastructure must be independent and no one from the outside should be able to influence it. That is why building such infrastructure and ensuring its operability is one of the foremost tasks facing the IT sector of any country today.

Russia has already done a lot in this direction when it comes to independent digital finance: the Faster Payments System (SBP), the Financial Messaging System (SPFS), and the MIR National Payment Card System.

The Large-Scale Launch of the Digital Ruble Is on the Horizon

A stable, functioning economy has a main nerve — finance. Payments and transactions in general must reach their destinations without delays or errors — only this ensures the trust of financial market participants. At the same time, the fragmentation of global finance requires a transition from global standards to working through closed gateways. Therefore, the IT industry must focus on developing systems for direct settlements in national digital currencies with partner countries, ensuring financial sovereignty.

The concept of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) is currently being tested in practice in many countries around the world. These tests have been ongoing for over a decade. And the most important thing when launching such a "product" is to guarantee to its "consumers" that the infrastructure servicing the digital currency will not fail and that its reliability cannot be questioned. This is a strategically important issue. And Russia is already preparing for the large-scale launch of the digital ruble. Large banks are required to connect to the project starting September 1, 2026, and large retailers as well.

For the IT industry, this transition represents a concrete task. It is necessary to create a system of gateways for direct settlements between the digital ruble, the yuan, and the dirham. It is necessary to provide for the implementation of smart contracts that execute transactions themselves. It is necessary to ensure integration with tokenized assets — that is, to develop the market for digital financial assets (DFAs), which has enormous potential and could eventually reach the volume of outstanding classical bonds.

At the same time, DFAs are not only about bonds "in a digital wrapper," but also about the ability to digitize many other obligations and rights of economic participants. Fintech, which builds bridges between the world of exchange-traded "classics" and the "digital" world, performs important work, being essentially a tool for ensuring the country's financial sovereignty. I am confident that developers who know how to work with distributed ledger technology and CBDCs will always be in demand.

AI 2.0: Sovereign Models Instead of Global Clouds

The development of artificial intelligence (AI) now also makes one think: where is all that infrastructure on which companies increasingly rely in their development? And if it is not under control, doesn't a risk arise? Yes, it does, and that is precisely why corporate neural networks are gaining great popularity — this is becoming the AI 2.0 trend. The emergence within the country of a demand for domestically developed AI models and infrastructure located within the corporate sector is forcing developers to adapt "AI 2.0" technologies to local data centers.

The priority is now to create independent neural network stacks that do not depend on updates and licenses from foreign technology giants. Global Big Tech is gradually ceasing to be the main supplier of AI solutions. States and companies do not want to give their data to foreign servers, and I see how the concept of sovereign AI is gaining momentum.

It has become increasingly difficult to power huge models. Working with them also carries the risk of data leaks. At the same time, small language models are catching up with their "older brothers" in terms of problem-solving quality while operating locally. For Russia and partner countries, this opens up the prospect of deploying neural network stacks on their data centers, training them on local data, and optimizing model performance for available hardware.

There is also growing demand for data processing conducted as close to the user as possible, rather than in a centralized cloud far away. This is understandable, since with this approach there is no dependence on updates from abroad or the risk of sudden restriction of access to infrastructure for any reason. I am confident that IT specialists need to build precisely such independent stacks: from hardware to fine-tuning AI models for specific industry tasks. Companies that do this will protect their data and continue to operate even if the outside world "flips the switch." Moreover, in the financial sector, this is simply a necessity.

Blockchain for the Real Economy Within Country Blocs

In the era of global fragmented internet, blockchain technology is transforming into a tool for tokenizing real assets within country blocs. Today, blockchain has already moved from speculation into the real sector. Tokenization of real assets — oil, grain, logistics infrastructure and processes, financial obligations — is becoming a way to conduct trade, bypassing unjustified restrictions in the world. Thus, the development of the IT sector in these new realities cannot overlook this technology: in conditions of constant unpredictability of the external environment, blockchain becomes necessary to ensure transparency in logistics and foreign economic activity.

This is especially noticeable in the economies of BRICS countries and the economies of the bloc's partner countries. Smart contracts reduce logistics costs. Each container can be a token with associated rights — meaning complete transaction transparency. However, for the IT industry, this is a major task — to provide such transparency. Blockchains for sensitive data within the country, bridges for exchanging liquidity with partners — all of this requires non-trivial solutions that are resilient to any changes in the external environment. I have seen in practice how tokenization improves asset liquidity parameters and how in new conditions it becomes a tool for the stable functioning of the financial services sector — and therefore the economy as a whole.

The Death of the Open Web Model — What Is Happening?

The open internet is becoming too risky. Essentially, we are talking about an illusion that existed in the world for a long time. It was always clear to me: data, especially in the financial sector, cannot be entrusted to foreign servers, to some third-party AI solutions, when it is unknown how the entered information will be stored, how access to it will be guaranteed, and where it might leak. And the current conflict in the Middle East shows that hardware and internet cables can also be very vulnerable if they are not under reliable control.

I believe that the future lies in creating distributed ecosystems within the country and within partner countries, resilient to disconnection from global backbone communication nodes. And it can be said that such ecosystems will serve to increase the resilience of the internet as a system, whose reliability and security for both business and the state as a whole will be ensured locally. And in Russia, this work continues.

What Needs to Be Done Right Now?

Restructuring the IT industry means changing priorities. We need to stop chasing the largest cloud services and start building our own. We need to invest in people who know how to make independent stacks. We need to support open-source models, but deployed on our own hardware. We need to remember that external libraries for developers are very interesting and useful — but what will happen if they are turned off ("accidentally" or intentionally) from abroad? And where is the guarantee that this won't happen? And what will happen to the country's financial system and the economy as a whole if it continues to depend on these external libraries in its IT solutions? To put it mildly, nothing good — so we need to create digital bridges with partners, but with the ability to instantly raise or lower them.

Today, a strategic approach is needed, and those who understood this earlier are already winning. The rest risk being left with code that will stop working when a real crisis hits, as well as with data that leaks to global competitors.

The open internet model is dying not because of anyone's ill will, but because the world has returned to reality — borders, interests, dangers, threats. The IT industry in the new realities must become the foundation of sovereignty. Not a branch on the world tree, but a separate strong garden that bears fruit even in a storm. This is more difficult and more expensive at the start, but more reliable in the long run.