This year Russia was represented at WAIC 2026 by a state delegation headed by Maxim Oreshkin, Deputy Head of the Presidential Executive Office. It included Andrey Vorobyov, Governor of the Moscow Region and Chairman of the State Council commission for the Data Economy, as well as heads of the country's leading technology companies and industry associations.
As part of the delegation, the conference was also attended by representatives of the National Autonomous Systems Association — Chairman of the Board Dmitry Afanasyev, Development Director Ilya Makarov and AI development expert Artemy Akopov.
The delegation's work
The Association's delegation worked in two strategic tracks of the business programme.
The Global AI Governance Forum — a high-level forum on the global governance of AI. At the centre of the discussion: how leading states build national strategies for AI and autonomous systems, which regulatory models are becoming an international norm, and how to balance the pace of technological development with the responsibility of the state.
AI Journey — "Creating the next generation of AI" — a strategic session on the future of agent-based systems and multi-agent platforms, in which autonomous systems interact with each other without a human involved in every process.
The exhibition featured neither prototypes nor concepts. These were autonomous systems already deployed in industry, logistics, healthcare and urban infrastructure. What was shown a year ago as a technological possibility is today working in the real economy.
Russia in the global technology dialogue
The delegation presented to international partners the concept of the NAS Association as a single industry integrator that brings together five domains of application for autonomous systems: air, land, water, space and the digital environment. This comprehensive cross-industry approach — unlike that of narrowly specialised bodies — attracted noticeable interest from partners from China and other countries represented at the forum.
The delegation took part at a critically important moment. At the SPIEF plenary session in June 2026, President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin instructed the Government to develop a national strategy for autonomous systems. The NAS Association is involved in preparing this document.
WAIC gave the delegation something that cannot be obtained from reports and analytics: a first-hand understanding of the speed and direction in which the global industry is moving. It is precisely this understanding that becomes the basis for work on the national strategy.
Dmitry Afanasyev, Chairman of the Board of the NAS Association:
"WAIC is the place where you can see the real pace of the global industry. Not the declared or the forecast pace — the real one. Russia is now shaping its national strategy for autonomous systems, and we are part of that work. Shanghai gives a clear understanding of what this document should be: ambitious, systemic and synchronised with the global agenda."
