Interview with Nikolai Komlev, Executive Director of the Association of Computer and Information Technology Enterprises (APKIT) in the yearbook "Live Electronics of Russia 2025"
I have known Nikolai Komlev, Executive Director of the Association of Computer and Information Technology Enterprises (APKIT), for a long time. During our new meeting, he was, as always, frank and succinctly but exhaustively outlined the situation in the domestic IT industry. Following it, we will also be brief and provide the reader with an opportunity to get acquainted with this very interesting conversation without additional comments.
We are glad to see you on the pages of GER. A lot of water has flowed since our last meeting, so let's get to know each other again. Tell us about the association, its goals, objectives, and membership.
There are only facts here, so briefly: The Association of Computer and Information Technology Enterprises (APKIT) was registered in November 2001. Among its ranks are the largest domestic and global companies in the field of software development and implementation, distribution, system integration, services, production of computers and equipment, the Internet, as well as niche associations – the Association of Information Security of ASIA, the Association of Software Suppliers NP PPP, ARPP "Domestic Software", NP RUSSOFT, the Association of Developers ARPE and Electronics Manufacturers, Association of Enterprises in the Field of Radio Electronics, Information Technology, Digital Innovation and Engineering, IT Cluster of Siberia.
The total revenue of direct APKIT members, excluding associate members (member companies of APKIT associations), according to the Federal Tax Service, is more than 3 trillion ₽.
APKIT represents Russia in the WITSA global alliance of National IT associations. In the National Council for Professional Qualifications under the President of the Russian Federation, APKIT (as SEC-IT) is responsible for the system of professional qualifications in the IT industry and the field of information security. Representatives of APKIT head key CCPs within the framework of the NOPO and NIPO roadmaps, and are founders of the ANO Digital Economy.
Among the main functions of the association are: protection and promotion of the interests of IT in power; ensuring conditions for the growth of the IT market, ethics in relations between companies in the market.
There have been many changes in the Russian IT industry recently. In particular, there has been a significant shortage of staff and problems in training new specialists at universities. There were a variety of proposals to remedy this situation, including the requirement to oblige employees of IT companies to teach at universities. What is the best way out for you, how to organize training and retraining of personnel?
Many ideas on accelerating the growth of the number and quality of IT personnel are born not in departments, but in the minds of representatives of the IT business, especially in large companies that need thousands of employees. The well-known project "Digital Departments" was born at the annual conference "Teaching IT in Russia". Its essence is to allocate public funds for students of non-IT specialties so that in parallel with their basic studies, for example, in chemistry or medicine, they can also master an IT specialty. The idea was supported by the state. For example, in 2024, 228 thousand students were accepted and passed the entrance assessment. You must agree, this is a significant increase to the 128.5 thousand students enrolled in higher education programs in the field of IT for budget places.
The idea to motivate employees of IT companies to teach at universities also appeared in the ranks of the IT business. In December 2025, Minister M. Shadaev noted in a report to the President: "In 4 years, we have doubled the number of budget places for IT specialties in universities." However, the number of teachers remained approximately at the same level. And most importantly, many of them are still disconnected from the practice of using modern technologies. And business has this practice, but how can it be transferred to universities? We discussed the idea of government incentives for those heads of IT companies (for example, by reducing the tax burden) who send their employees to teach or accept students for an internship with a salary.
In the government's understanding, the idea of "motivation" has been transformed into what we now call "coercion to teach." On February 14, 2025, the Ministry of Finance of Russia published a draft Government decree "On Amendments to the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation dated September 30, 2022 No. 1729" (regulation.gov.ru, ID=154642). The project defines the minimum amount of funds allocated to support education – the equivalent of 5% of the amount of funds saved by an IT company per year from the application of reduced insurance premium rates. The project affects only a large IT business with a turnover of 1 billion rubles. If you fail to comply with the standard, you will be removed from the registry and lose the title of an IT company and all related benefits.
Now our task as the IT community is to help us finalize this project.
The shortage of qualified IT personnel has led to the emergence of "specialists" with frankly low qualifications. There was even a need for certification of IT specialists. This problem is especially important in information security systems, which is known to be the No. 1 priority for IT managers at all levels. APKIT has created a certification council. Tell us about the current state of affairs in this area.
In the Russian certification market, there are separate certification programs offered by training centers and development companies, but there is no single system focused not on the interests of individual manufacturers, but on solving government tasks in the field of quality management of employee training.
After the departure of Western vendors and testing centers, the market faced a situation where the need for well-known programming languages and development environments not only remained, but even increased, and the opportunity to pass certification and confirm their knowledge and skills with specialists practically disappeared. There is, of course, the NSPK system, but it is being evaluated for compliance with professional standards. But this is something completely different – fundamentally separate from specific languages, technologies, and vendors.
The demand for a unified certification system is likely to increase against the background of a growing shortage of qualified IT specialists, the emergence of new "import-substituting" products, and the government's struggle for the quality of digital state projects.
In order to develop, develop and promote the Russian certification system for IT specialists, the APKIT Association, RUSSOFT, and the Otechestvenny Soft ARPP, with the support of the ANO Digital Economy, the Skolkovo Foundation, and Innopolis University, together with educational centers, IT companies supported the initiative to build a unified certification system or harmonize existing ones. The Ministry of Labor supported the project. However, without the explicit support of other departments in modern conditions, the project is not developing quickly.
It's no secret that the shortage of IT specialists has given rise to a salary race, and companies are luring highly qualified IT specialists away from each other with high salaries. What will this race lead to and how long can it last?
This year, many customers have reduced their budgets for digitalization and IT procurement. In addition, the high level of the key rate also cools the economy. Under these conditions, it is likely that the outstripping growth in the need for IT personnel and salary growth will decrease.
Apparently, the salaries of top, unique specialists will remain inflated. But that's all. The salaries of other IT specialists have now stabilized, albeit temporarily.
In the current conditions, how can enterprises meet the demand for expanding digital capabilities, including the demand for integrated intelligent automation of all organizational processes? What opportunities do IT companies have in terms of upgrading their organizations' cloud infrastructure?
Increased use of cloud infrastructure, AI systems, robots, drones, mobility, and security tools is our immediate future. Sanctions, the high cost of ECB, difficulties with financial statistics – all this hinders and hinders the pace of digitalization. But this is a consequence of the foreign policy atmosphere, which we probably cannot influence.
As you know, one of the most important IT priorities is data processing and analysis. What are the possibilities of the Russian IT industry in terms of solving the problem of updating the information system of enterprises? In particular, how optimistic do you see the realization of innovative opportunities through the introduction of artificial intelligence methods for using big data and its analytics?
Striving to use technology is useful. However, in conditions of economic sanctions and limited investment opportunities, companies rely on solutions that can be returned in six months or a year, or two at the most. And it doesn't matter if it's trendy AI, big data, quanta, or other technologies. In general, either give a quick return, or go look for grants from the state.
As if to confirm the validity of such a strategy, Daron Ajemoglu, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2024, concluded from his research that only about 5% of tasks can be completed by AI with profit over the next 10 years.
How significantly does the increase in the key rate affect IT companies? Do they have any credit benefits?
With such an increase in the key rate, the central Bank turned out to be akin to the wolf of the forest. This year, weak companies that have failed to effectively manage loans, grants, and other borrowed funds will be eaten up, bankrupted, or absorbed. More viable companies will reduce costs, lay off some of their employees (dozens or even hundreds), and diversify their operations. But there will be no unemployment – the remnants of projects and reduced staff will be taken over by strong or close to government and bank money companies.
The government is taking a number of measures to support the IT industry, including mortgage benefits. How effective are such measures? What essential element is missing from this support?
The reviews about preferential mortgages are the most positive. There is real help for young IT specialists with housing, and linking IT personnel to their native shores. In the same row, there is a deferral from the army, reduced taxes, and support for IT education.
Once upon a time, they also talked about preferential loans and grants. But already at the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024, the preferential loans ended. And the mortgage has become much more difficult. Support measures played a major role in the beginning of its and sanctions. They helped to shift imports faster in critical areas and keep companies and staff in the country. The government succeeded in the main thing – the industry and the economy did not collapse. An impetus was given to the accelerated development of Russian software and even the production of a number of IT equipment.
What is the industry missing today? Preferential loans, consistent policy in the field of ECB. The production of modern processors in Russia has not only not appeared, there have not even been announced plans (albeit 5-10 years old) to deploy their production.
To what extent has domestic software replaced Western software today? Is it advisable to pay an additional fee for using foreign software?
In government agencies, there has been mostly a substitution. State-owned enterprises are in full swing. But the further away from the state and the CII facilities, the more complex the software, the less substitution there is. It is hardly possible to make domestic software generally better than the world's in all classes. We need to analyze in more detail by type of software and by industry.
For example, in the ERP (Enterprise Management Systems) class, we have 5-6 domestic systems. And the issue of substitution is mainly related to finding money, specialists and time to set up these systems and switch to them.
Regarding the fee for using a foreign product, I understand the logic of the authors of the idea. By forcing payments to force large users: a) switch to domestic production as soon as possible; b) receive additional funds from them for digitalization projects.
At the same time, all major IT associations are opposed to such an idea. The domestic developers who are supposed to receive these collected funds do not support this initiative. Why is it so:
- the bill de facto legalizes computer piracy – buy an indulgence and continue using illegal;
- if in Russia it is possible to do this with someone else's intellectual property, then the whole world gets the moral right to apply symmetrical measures, and there the market volume is many times larger.;
- then why buy domestic products if you can legally and practically use foreign ones for free?;
- parafiscal collection is fraught with corruption at all stages – from fundraising to their distribution.
How great is the evil associated with the use of counterfeit software?
If we agree with Rosstat, which estimated the volume of the Russian software development market in 2024 at 4.97 trillion rubles, then reducing piracy by, for example, 10% will give the IT business an additional almost 500 billion rubles. Of course, this cannot be considered head-on in the economy, but it is probably acceptable to assess the scale of losses.
Populists often say: "Why are you protecting the rights of Western companies? Let's declare their software as a trophy." Such would-be patriots do not understand that this is a terrible way to harm a domestic developer. If I use the Microsoft office for free and with impunity, then why would I spend money to buy Russian analogues from MyOffice or P7?
How do you assess the national project "Data Economy and Digital Transformation of the state"? What are its pros and cons?
It is good that it exists and inherits the national project "Digital Economy" in many ways. It takes into account new challenges, promising technologies, and addresses and corrects the weaknesses of the previous project. The control system is more clearly structured. It is important that the government understands that investing in IT and digital is essential for the development of the entire economy.
To be honest, now the IT business is no longer following the national project, but rather the regulatory framework, which has a more significant impact on the economy of IT enterprises.
In particular, new rules for accreditation as an IT company are being discussed. Let me remind you that this status provides tax benefits and employee benefits.:
- income tax has become 5% (for everyone it is 25%);
- insurance premiums became 7.6% (for others – 30%);
- preferential mortgages for employees at a rate of up to 6%;
- deferral from the army (not to be confused with the armor);
- theoretically, there are preferential loans at a rate of 1 to 5%.
The additional conditions for the accreditation of IT companies, which are planned to be adopted, assume that only the above-mentioned 5% will be allocated to support education.
The government has heard criticism that state corporations are spending state funds on the re-development of the same VKS tools, document management systems, and even operating systems exclusively for themselves. This is not only an inefficient spending of the state budget, but also the withdrawal of funds from the free market. Therefore, the new requirements for IT companies include the need to commercialize the developed product - over the past year, the share of revenue from the sale of software rights received from third–party organizations (not affiliated) should be at least 70%.
The rules for inclusion in the Registry of domestic software are changing. In particular, compatibility with two Russian processors will allow you to gain advantages at federal and municipal auctions.
Let's talk about hardware. How big is the parallel import in the industry? Is it possible to do without it at the present time and what is its impact on domestic producers?
Parallel import (in the broad sense of the term) He saved the situation with the import of components and equipment after the imposition of sanctions. This is its main benefit. There are also negative sides. For example, reliable statistics have disappeared from the market. The share of the grey and black markets, which we had previously struggled with for so long and achieved significant success, began to grow.
Russian manufacturers of computers, servers, data storage systems, and other things need a component base. Without parallel ECB imports, this production will simply stop. But the import of ready–made equipment, analogues of which are already being produced in Russia, is a completely different topic. Here, the government will probably introduce protectionist measures to protect production in Russia.
The lack of Russian electronic equipment in IT technologies is no secret to anyone. Is the Chinese ECB capable of replacing similar products from Western companies? How accessible is it? Are Chinese manufacturers afraid of secondary sanctions?
Probably, Chinese manufacturers will try to supply us not with their advanced electronic devices, but with finished products. Large manufacturers are afraid of secondary sanctions all over the world.
Import substitution in the IT industry. What succeeded and what failed?
The greatest success of substitution is in software and in ensuring the functioning of the entire state administration and all enterprises. More modestly, in the production of servers and computers. Very weak in the ECB area.
Your forecast about the state of the domestic IT industry in the near future. Is it in danger of falling significantly behind the leading countries, primarily due to geopolitical problems?
In the age of Trump, forecasting is a thankless task. We look at the facts and consider future scenarios. The facts are that IT in Russia is developing and being implemented not so badly. In everyday life, look at Moscow, which is already a digital city in many ways. Even in the face of sanctions, jammers that disrupt navigation, etc., there is a noticeable increase in new developments in the IT industry. And if it weren't for the sanctions barriers, we would be making good progress around the world with our solutions.
And then we go through the scenarios and propose our own models of business and government behavior. The scenario of delaying the lifting of sanctions; the scenario of friendship with the United States while reducing relations with China; the scenario of a massive return of global vendors capable of killing the weak shoots of electronic equipment production in Russia; the scenario of their own Mask, capable of deploying ECB production in Russia, and other scenarios.
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