Russia has presented a domestically developed neuromorphic processor called “Altai”, a brain-inspired chip designed to perform artificial intelligence tasks with significantly lower power consumption than conventional processors, according to information released by the project’s developers.

The processor, developed by Novosibirsk-based Motive NT with cybersecurity group Kaspersky as a strategic investor, was previously presented to Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin and is being positioned as a potential platform for autonomous systems, machine vision and electronic warfare applications.

As IntelliNews has reported, Russia has been forced to up its innovation efforts by the extreme sanction’s regime imposed by the West following its invasion of Ukraine in 2022. And it has been doing so with some success. However, semiconductors and microchips remains one of the sectors where Russian technology lags far behind that of the West, making the development of the Altai chip doubly significant, according to the Kaspersky Labs, one of the chip’s investors.

According to the developers, Altai uses spiking neural networks that generate signals only when required, mimicking aspects of biological neural activity. They claim the architecture delivers more than “1000X better energy efficiency than traditional chips” while operating at roughly 20 watts.

The company also says the processor can handle video streams at up to 2,200 frames per second while consuming less than 0.5 watts in a compact 9mm by 9mm package. The comparison was made against systems based on NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) Jetson modules, which are widely used in edge AI and robotics applications and typically consume substantially more power depending on configuration and workload.

Altai reportedly contains 256 asynchronous computing cores capable of simulating 131,072 artificial neurons and approximately 67mn synaptic connections. Neuromorphic computing has attracted growing interest globally as researchers seek alternatives to power-hungry AI accelerators used for training and inference.

Russian developers say the chip could be deployed in low-cost drones, distributed sensor networks and radio-electronic warfare equipment, enabling longer operating times on limited battery capacity. Such applications have become increasingly important as militaries seek to push AI processing closer to the battlefield rather than relying on remote data centres.

The processor remains a prototype manufactured on a 28-nanometre process and has not yet entered large-scale production. Future manufacturing could depend on access to overseas fabrication facilities, including in China, or on adaptation to older domestic production nodes, according to people familiar with Russia’s semiconductor sector.

The unveiling comes as Russia continues efforts to develop indigenous computing technologies following extensive Western export controls on advanced semiconductor equipment and chips introduced since 2022. Altai’s developers describe the processor as a step towards greater technological sovereignty in strategic computing systems.