Does Russia Have What It Takes to Develop High-Tech Manufacturing?

Infrastructure extends beyond production facilities

High-tech manufacturing is typically associated with modern enterprises, new equipment, and production lines. However, before mass production can begin, a product must be developed, a prototype manufactured, tests conducted, and specialists and suppliers found. If some of these capabilities are unavailable, a project becomes more expensive and drawn out, and sometimes relocates to where the necessary conditions already exist.

Today this issue has not only sectoral but also quite practical significance for regional development. Technological leadership is enshrined among Russia's national goals, and by 2030 the target is to increase by one and a half times compared to 2023 the share of domestic high-tech goods and services created on the basis of proprietary development pipelines in their total consumption.¹ Such targets cannot be achieved solely through support for individual companies. Enterprises need conditions in which development can be brought to an industrial result without creating every element of the research and production base from scratch.

Therefore, infrastructure for developing high-tech production should be understood more broadly than the usual set of industrial parks, technology parks, and utility networks. It encompasses the entire system of resources and services that a high-tech company can access in a region or through interaction with other territories. This includes production facilities and equipment, engineering and research base, digital environment, specialist training, financing for technology projects, and mechanisms for interaction among companies, universities, and research organizations.

The Institute of Regional Economics and Intergovernmental Relations at Financial University conducted a comparative analysis of regions in terms of conditions for developing high-tech production. Industrial-technological conditions show the extent to which facilities, technology parks, and production cooperation are developed in a region. Financial-institutional conditions reflect the availability of targeted support for technology projects. Digital solutions adoption by organizations, training of engineering and scientific personnel, as well as opportunities for research, testing, and implementation of new technologies were assessed separately. The final assessment system included 24 indicators across 85 constituent entities of the Russian Federation. 

Where conditions for technology have already formed

Based on the integral index value, regions were divided into five equal groups: from leaders to entities with low levels of infrastructure conditions. The result is presented on the map.²

The differences proved substantial. The integral assessment ranges from 2.26 to 88.36 points with an average value of 44.62 points. The top group includes regions with scores from 62.02 points, while the bottom group has less than 26.84 points. The map clearly shows that more favorable combinations of conditions are more common in the Volga, Central, and Ural federal districts, as well as in individual industrial and scientific centers of Siberia and the Northwest. At the same time, regional proximity guarantees nothing by itself: differences can be notable even within a single federal district.

First place in the calculations goes to the Republic of Tatarstan with 88.36 points. Next come Samara Oblast—85.16 points, Saint Petersburg—83.72, Nizhny Novgorod Oblast—80.71, and Moscow—80.32 points. The leaders group also includes Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk oblasts, Perm Krai, Novosibirsk and Tomsk oblasts, Bashkortostan, Moscow Oblast, and several other entities. What unites them is not the presence of some single infrastructure advantage, but a relatively balanced combination of industrial base, personnel, scientific-technological resources, digital environment, and functioning support mechanisms.

The Volga Federal District stands out particularly. The average score here is 58.10 points—the highest among all federal districts. Six of its fourteen constituent entities made it into the leaders group: Tatarstan, Samara and Nizhny Novgorod oblasts, Perm Krai, Bashkortostan, and Udmurtia. This concentration appears logical: the district simultaneously hosts major industrial centers, universities and research organizations, has developed production cooperation networks, and demand for engineering and technology services is sustained by operating enterprises.

But the presence of strong centers does not make Russia's landscape uniform. In the Siberian Federal District, the leaders are Novosibirsk, Tomsk, and Omsk oblasts, while other constituent entities are noticeably weaker. In the Northwestern District, Saint Petersburg was the only region in the top group. Leningrad and Kaliningrad oblasts achieved high but not leading-tier levels. For the district as a whole, the digital environment is a strong suit, yet scientific, personnel, and production capabilities are markedly concentrated in Saint Petersburg. A similar situation occurs in other parts of the country: the strong performance of one major center sits alongside more limited capabilities in surrounding territories.

There is no universal development model

On the other hand, the lowest score went to the Jewish Autonomous Oblast at 2.26 points. Next come the Nenets Autonomous Okrug at 5.76 points, the Republic of Ingushetia at 8.36, the Republic of Kalmykia at 12.12, and the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug at 12.24 points. The reasons vary. For northern and Far Eastern territories, remoteness, a small domestic market, and narrow economic specialization play a significant role. In a number of regions, the constraint remains a relatively small industrial sector that does not generate sustained demand for a broad range of specialized technology services.

This is precisely why identical infrastructure solutions cannot produce identical results in different regions. A major industrial center needs testing facilities, engineering support, and access to sophisticated scientific equipment. In a region with a small production base, creating the same set of facilities may lead to underutilization and high maintenance costs. There, it is often more important to provide enterprises with access to capabilities in other territories, establish project support, and develop those environmental elements for which real demand already exists.

There is another important nuance. The scores obtained show regions' positions relative to one another, not compliance with some normative standard of sufficiency. Even Tatarstan's 88.36 points do not mean that all the needs of high-tech companies in the republic are fully met. The score merely indicates that the combination of conditions examined there is noticeably stronger than in most other constituent entities. 

The answer to the question in the headline ultimately depends on which region and which project we're talking about. Somewhere, launching a new production facility already has a strong engineering and scientific base, but lacks certain specialized services. Somewhere else, it's first necessary to expand the industrial foundation itself and personnel capacity. Therefore, infrastructure development should begin not with counting the facilities one would like to create, but with understanding what specifically enterprises lack for the next step—from development to testing, from testing to pilot production, from pilot production to serial manufacturing.

High-tech production takes root where a company can not only open a workshop but also complete the entire journey from idea to stable product output. The fewer barriers along this path between equipment, people, knowledge, and real demand, the higher the likelihood that a new technology will remain in the region and turn into a functioning production result.